I am extremely new to art and I was thinking it might be some sort of new, productive thing to do. I am very confused as to how to ground a horses hooves and make appropriate shadows! Ive been looking through some tutorials, but none seem to really go in depth into it. Making a horse fit into the background is proving difficult. Seeking help ASAP! Thanks for your help in advance!

Hey! I'd love to help out.

Grounding horse hooves
-This has happened to me before where I've found the perfect stock but some of the hooves look wonky or grass is covering them. Usually, there is at least one good and well-presentable hoof on the horse, depending on what app you're using, you can copy that hoof over to the other wonky-looking one and try to blend it into the place where the ankle breaks off into the hoof, as in blurring the area where they meet. You may also have to postion it to make it fit better. Another way to do this is by covering the hoof in its surroundings. For example, in a horse in a forest, you can cover the wonky parts of the hoof with grass the same color as the background. Try to pick different colors so it looks natural.

Appropriate shadows
-This is really easy once you get the hang of it! Also depending on the app your using, Shadows can range a lot. If you're talking about the shadow the horse makes it is usually in front of the horse and slimmer than the actual horse, in which you should slightly adjust the shadow to fit it. The shadows on the horse are specifically determined depending on where the light hits the horse. What you can do is circle out where the light is and draw lines to where the light extends out to see the spots where it hits the horse and doesn't, then you can properly make the shadows.

Blending horse into the background
-This is a bit more difficult because it will be slightly different ranging on the background, for example, The horse does not need to take up the whole canvas as it needs to be natural. You can also achieve this by making sure you cut the horse out cleanly and obviously leaving room for a tail on the ground behind the horse. You can build up the grass around the horse. What I do is blur the distance of the background so the horse is better visible, I may make the part of the background that's upfront closer to the horse less blurred because its more in sight. Another way to make it natural is to make the lighting multi-colored, using colors from the background's light source to make it look more realistic, don't just use one color! Also, another way to make it look better is where you postion the horse in the background. You have to postion it correctly so the horse isn't floating...obviously, and there needs to be room for the tail. I recommend playing around with the horse's postion for a bit till you find one that you believe looks more natural. Just like shadows, you should also light up the areas on the horse where the light source hits so it looks more natural, you can use the light sources lighter colors or use a white and slightly dim it. yet don't go over board.

Hope this helps :)

I think it will, thanks a bunch!