I'm learning how to draw jackals for a drawing I'm working on, and I decided to post this as a little demonstration of how I study anatomy. Who knows, maybe it'll be of use to someone.

Probably moving this to scraps later.

Anyway, first I find a bunch of good reference pictures, as well as a few references of the skeletal and muscular anatomy of the animal I'm trying to draw (or at the very least a related animal). For example, here's a black jackal skeleton I used for reference ( http://www.theboneman.com/images/Ja.....d_for_site.jpg ) and since I couldn't find a muscular reference for jackals in general, I used these two anatomy drawings I found of a wolf ( http://eklutna.deviantart.com/art/W.....late-187914447 ) and a generic dog ( http://www.carlson-art.com/lifescie.....muscles-lg.jpg ).
Next, I choose a few photo references of the animal who's anatomy I'm studying (black jackal), copy/paste them into photoshop, make a new layer, and draw the position of the skeleton on top of the photograph. I then open another layer and do the same thing but with the muscles. I do this to gain an understanding of how the skeleton/muscles relate to each other positionally and proportionally on the animal in various poses.
Once I think I've got an okay idea of what I'm doing, I take another reference and instead of tracing over it, I try and replicate it the best I can using what I've learned from the previous steps. I also decided to use the finished drawing as an opportunity to practice some simple cell shading :3 I'll post him separately from all this momentarily.