Arts Postures for Artists Drawing Sitting Postures for Artists

Understanding the figure

To draw a pose correctly, you don't need to always deport an anatomy book with you. Information technology'due south not as hard every bit it seems: observation and practise are your best tools. If at whatsoever bespeak you get curious almost trying something new (which I hope y'all do), it never hurts to take a look at that beefcake book.
Fifty-fifty if your cartoon style is far from realistic, the aspects that make a pose interesting and credible remain the same: strength, rhythm, activeness lines, construction and perspective.

Ascertainment:

Your closest reference is yourself. If you expect at yourself in front end of a mirror and kickoff moving, you will notice that your body works as a single element.

When you enhance an arm, the arm is not the only part of your torso that moves, unlike how the removable extremities of dolls work. The changes in your body don't resemble figure A, correct? For example, your shoulder likewise lifts, and many other parts of your torso adjust to the movement as in figure B.

This is what observation means: paying attention to the details and characteristics of the torso.

Strength and rhythm

Your characters move cheers to their inner strength. They tin walk, jump, dance… whatever comes to listen! But unless they are floating in space, information technology is non the only strength that acts on them, every bit gravity makes their anxiety stay on land.

When two or more forces interact with each other, a rhythm is set, which provides residual and sense to the motion.

If your grapheme is pushed to the left, his body volition fall in that direction (A), unless he puts up resistance to stand (B).

If the character wants to pull something that refuses to move, his trunk will lean in the opposite direction. Evidently, in one case the true cat gives in to the forcefulness, your grapheme volition autumn, as the true cat was what kept him continuing.

Strength and rhythm provide a lot of visual information you can piece of work with: the weight of your character (1), the balance of his pose (2) or the lack of it (three).

Action lines

The action line is the imaginary guide that indicates your character's movement. It focuses on actions and helps to unify the whole figure.

Below you can see a couple of examples where forcefulness, rhythm and activeness lines collaborate together.

Example 1:

The character (i) has a relaxed stance, resting on her right arm. In the figure (two), we can run into her activity line, which covers her whole trunk up to the foot. The shape is slightly like to an S.

We can see information technology is a relaxed pose considering her weight rests on a unmarried bespeak (3) and all she needs is to proceed the balance with her left human foot, which remains taut while the right one is resting.

Instance two:

The next pose is more than dynamic, so there are more than things going on in this image.

This fourth dimension yous can see three activeness lines, only the nearly of import are (1) and (ii), the ones that really tell the story. The outset ane covers the whole figure from caput to toe, and the 2nd one goes in the opposite direction, keeping the balance and forming an X. The third one simply provides greater stability to the pose.

In this drawing we tin can see that at that place is a strength that pushes the grapheme in the opposite direction to her gaze. Elements such as the pilus, the clothes and the grit on the floor suggest that the strength comes from the correct side, and as these elements are lite, they are affected by the speed with which this forcefulness acts.

However, this daughter wants to overcome this force with her own force. She has no intention of losing the fight.

Example iii:

This fourth dimension, our character is a baseball player. He's spinning his body to get enough momentum and counter the ball's forcefulness to hitting it far away. Don't you get the impression that it will exist a home run fifty-fifty though you haven't seen how the scene ends yet? It's the magic of anticipation. If yous know how to properly handle the strength, rhythm, and action lines correctly, you volition be able to guide the spectator forth the path you have fix. This is very important for any comic artist.

It's important that you don't overpopulate your drawing with besides many action lines, because it could confuse the grapheme's intention, make the force go in dissimilar directions, and take the emphasis abroad from the most important action.

Construction

The body is quite complex and it is difficult to draw correct proportions and motility abroad from the 2nd plane. I recommend you shape a base of operations that helps you discern the volume of each element. To practice this, nosotros volition use geometric figures such as spheres, cubes and cylinders to represent the structure of the body.

These figures can be freely rotated, stretched, flexed, and twisted according to the pose.

These figures represent the direction of the different elements of the body. You must pay special attention to the limits of the joints, since at a certain point you take to plough or twist the body to go along moving in that direction, changing drastically the pose.

With exercise, this procedure gets simpler. The better you understand how the figure works, the fewer guides you will need.

Perspective

Perspective turns the 2D plane into a 3D one and adds more than depth and visual richness to the composition than just looking at it from a frontal aeroplane.

The middle level or horizon line represents the actual height of the viewer's eyes (i), and the vanishing points are the lines projected from a bespeak on the horizon (two). The following image has a perspective with 2 vanishing points with which nosotros can appreciate two faces of the figure.

The trunk is more intricate, but the principle is the aforementioned. For example, this figure's feet and hands are smaller due to the perspective, and even suggest us how we should project the vanishing point lines.

Activeness poses ever await more dramatic when the perspective is exaggerated. Even when the poses are not entirely realistic, the figures seem credible and the scenes await more than interesting.

I recommend you to exercise and read most perspective as much as possible, as it is not something you can master in a mean solar day. Analyze as many references every bit you lot can. Somewhen, you'll finish up seeing vanishing points everywhere.

Essential lines

You tin can speed upward and amend your observation skills past drawing poses using photos or actual people every bit a reference and setting a brusk time limit for it. The aim is to capture the essential information of the figure and, of course, to describe every bit many poses equally possible.

This exercise will likewise assistance y'all to increment your confidence when drawing. Don't exist afraid to draw the showtime line, and even if you make a mistake, avert erasing the lines. Try to focus and draw make clean, clear lines.

Below yous can come across some examples of poses that I have drawn inside 45 to 60 seconds:

At get-go, focus on drawing the whole body with smoothen lines. Then, if you have more time, particular and build the shape better.

Don't be afraid to depict what you don't see or what is hidden, as it will give you a better idea of the figure's structure.

Try to exaggerate the lines. It makes them softer and more apparent, yet crazy it sounds.

Unless the model is in a very rigid posture, try to avoid straight lines. The nearly natural poses are congenital with curves.

I hope these tips take been helpful!

If y'all desire to run into more of my work, from these links yous can access my social media pages and my portfolio:

https://www.instagram.com/eri_duh/
https://twitter.com/eri_duh
https://www.artstation.com/eridey

Cheers so much for reading this article!
– Eridey