Becoming a Centaur: All About Hooves

For the discussion of how to make hooves, my focus is going to be on the front legs. However, that is not to say that we ignore the hind legs! The size of your hooves should be similar. So we may want to handle the front legs before deciding how to make the hind legs.

Hoof Approaches

In the centaur design, our human legs act as the front legs for the horse, so our human feet will be where the hoof goes. But we run into a problem. Humans are plantigrade, meaning we walk on a flat foot. Horses are digitigrade, meaning they walk on their toes. Right away we will run into a challenge that will pit us against form and function!

If you do stand on the balls of your feet, then your heel and ankle look like a fetlock on a horse. However, this is not a comfortable or natural position for a human to stand in for a long period of time especially if they're dragging a horse rear-end behind them! It's not impossible, people wear tall heels every day so these muscles can be trained. This is a design decision you have to make for yourself.

Examples of how to add a hoof.

Method 1: No Hoof!

This might sound crazy, but you may not need to make hooves at all! It should be mentioned that if you design a centaur with feathered hooves like a Shire or Clydesdale horse, the feathering will cover most if not all of the hoof. You can wear your normal shoes or shoes with a rounded toe and walk around normally.

It should be noted that feathering or using clever costume parts (like horse leg bracers or ruffled wraps) can hide parts of your foot so only the toes stick out. If you want to make digitigrade pants that can also help create the illusion of a fetlock without having you stand on your toes all day.

Method 2: Shoe Cover

Another fairly common method to making a hoof is covering the toe portion of your shoe. You will find a couple links to tutorials in the reference section about different ways to do this.

Whether you use a tennis shoe or platform high heels, you can cover the front half of the shoe or just the top of it with foam, a 3D Print, plaster, rubber or fabric.

This can be pretty versatile since you can in some cases switch between walking flat on your feet or on your toes.

Method 3: High Heels without the Heel

This method is incredibly popular with satyr or faun costumes. It requires either purchasing platform boots without heels or knocking the heel off a pair of high-heeled shoes (or boots). There are fetish boots mounted on hooves known as Pony Boots. (I've linked to some safe for work listings for these types of boots.) However, there are also artists making creature boots for others (also linked below!).

The basic idea is to create a solid hoof then attach the shoe/boot securely by the toe area to the top of the hoof. The shoe portion is usually wrapped in a nylon legging or faux fur to blend into the hoof. I have linked to tutorials and products for this type of shoe below.

Materials for Hooves

You have several options for making a hoof depending on if you are making a hoof cover or a hoof to stand on.

Solid Hoof

This needs to be sturdy enough to hold your weight! Most times when I see these kinds of hooves they are made with wood, resin, or 3D printed. (Although be very careful with 3D printing, you'll need to reinforce it internally pretty well.) There may be other materials I'm not thinking of but in general resin seems to be the safest bet.

Hoof Cover

A hoof cover can be made with many different materials. I've seen various forms of flexible foam, rubber, silicone, and fabric used as well as firm materials like plaster, resin, 3D Prints, or thermoplastics.

So you have many options to create your hoof. Below I have linked to tutorials I have read and some of my favorite resources for making a hoof including some 3D print files.