I wrote an anthro one shot a few days ago and it got some really good responses. Good enough that I feel like I want to write more in that world. It's a fun one, I just need to plan out my story. I'm writing it as anthro because I can better express emotion and actions with a biped, namely with arms, hands, and fingers. However, I realized a problem; WTF are at the bottom of their legs???

Like, I don't know what it's my head. I wrote hooves in the story, because I wanted to keep it more towards the pony side, but the anatamy is all messed up in my head. Both in written fiction and in artwork I've seen anthros with feet. That's fine and I may switch to that. But if so, I can't decide between plantigrade, which is like a human foot, and digitigrade, which is more like a cat or dog. Horses, and by extention ponies, are a whole different thing, unguligrade, which has it's own unique working.

(Seriously, that's the names. Look it up. It's pretty cool.)

Then there's muscle structure and definition. I did a quick google image search for just anthro ponies to get an idea and build it up in my head, but they're almost all different!

This,

honestly, is pretty damn close to what was in my head. Just straight down into a hoof. However, I can't shake the feeling that they would have balance issues. There doesn't seem to be an ankle to roll across, to angle the part that lands so it can land flat. Which would lead to an unsteady creature, at least in my mind, and so I can't write that because it doesn't make physical sense and I'd be trying to describe something impossible. I can't do that.

Horse hooves are incredibly complicated. Whereas to walk like a cat would have you walking on the balls of your feet, heel up and knee forward, horses walk on the toenail, the toes in the air going up and back to the heel before the leg turns and goes forward again to reach the knee.

I want my ponies to have hooves, it feels right. But I can't plan it out in my head, I can't see how it all works well enough to write it. I don't know if it's even going to be an issue in my fic but the thought keeps sidetracking me. I've spent more time on this one thing than I have writing the story!

So please, if you someone could either point me to a good fic which is anthro with hooves that does a good job describing it or is someone can explain it themselves. I can't write this story without having this issue solved and so far I've been unable to solve it myself. Please help.

It seems like a detail that doesn’t really need addressing, I mean how often to you need to talk about a character’s feet?

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Unless you're going to make a point about shoes, I don't think it needs addressing.

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It's not often. I don't know if it'll ever come up. That's not the problem. The problem is that I can't get this out of my head. I can't write a character walking across a room because part of my writing process is keeping a mental image of what's going on, and I can't visualize them walking. Every time I try to it reverts to ponies walking around, which ruins my ability to write the story as anthro, as I want to. But I don't want to write it humanized because I want to keep the wings and horns and fur and so much more.

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Is it the locomotion of it that’s messing with you?

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Kinda, I guess? Like, I can see a pony walking. I can see anthro with feet or paws walking. I can't visualize anthro with hooves walking. That's what's messing me up.

Feet, plantigrade, 100%. You pretty much already went into the problems with both digitigrade and unguligrade anthros. They don't need to be humanized to have feet.

There's a reason humans are plantigrade after all. It's just the best leg structure for bipedalism.

But they do have an ankle; it’s just not where you’re thinking it is. When you really get down to it, “unguligrade” really just means “walks on the tips of the toes.”

In the same way that digitigrades walk on the balls of their feet (“walk on the digits”) but still have ankles, so to is it for ungulates. The hoof rolls forward when they walk; it’s the same way that you can curl your toes towards the bottom of your foot. If your toes were fused together, 10x bigger around and flattened, and made of keratin, that’s what a anthropomorphic pony would have to walk on.

It’s a horribly inefficient way for a biped to walk, sure, but stuff it, it’s fantasy!

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Maybe reference Mass Effect. Quarians and Turians have reverse joint legs

Lol, anthro feet best feet.

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I guess people use plantigade anthro (with feet) for fetish stories. (Like foot fetish and tickle fetish.)

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This. Said everything I was going to.

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I actually like hooves for that, as well
Not enough of it, though.

My MLP anthros are always unguligrades, and have hooves.

Mainly because I just like them that way.

And, of course, depending on the races/species that aren't equines/cervines (deer, moose, elks; etc.), I always go with what their species would haves as non-anthros.
Paws for cats, dogs; etc.

Well, you guys get the idea.

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To quote Exodar Disco: There's certain sex appeal, to a horny babe with built-in heels.

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HOOVES