The red dots represent important external points on the horse, while the yellow dots represent the major internal joints.

These numbers were taken from Rajah, a 30-year-old Arab/ Quarter Horse mare.

The amount of detail in which to delve is up to you. To get a feel for the breed, you might just want to get the major ones correct, like relationships of back length versus hip length and angle, neck length, height, etc. These technical specs will add a very solid foundation to your sculpture. If you’re doing a portrait of a specific horse, you might find it helpful to get specific details, such as the length from the eye to the nostril, width between ears, length of ears, etc.

Keep in mind that some of these will change. Rajah was standing in a perfectly square conformation pose when I measured her, but lengths such as the lower neckline and from the croup to the stifle will change dramatically when the horse is in motion. But the lines following the skeleton will not change! Bones cannot shrink or stretch, and therefore there are some numbers that will always be constant.

To apply a real horse’s dimensions to your model, convert to a smaller scale. If I were sculpting a Traditional scale horse, 1/10th, I would change the head length of 22" to 2.2". Her body length would be 5.6", and so on. If you want to work in a different scale such as Classic (1/12th) or Stablemate (1/32nd) you do the math!

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