Character Design Crash Course: Body Poses

1. Intro: Hey guys and welcome to the Character Design Crash Course. This is the first-class of the series where we will talk about character poses. We discussed in the previous class about how to draw heads and portraits, how to draw expressions, and how to create character stories. If you want to create poses for a specific character of yours, make sure you go through those classes as well. I'm excited to be continuing this series. I hope I will be able to share with you some information, some insight and some inspiration. If you wonder who I am and why I'm teaching you this series. Hi, I'm Laura. I'm a freelance character designer and a children's book illustrator. I have been doing digital art professionally for the last four years. And there are many more years of traditional drawing and painting before that. Enough about me, let me tell you what this class will be. About. This class we'll cover a breakdown of multiple poses. Some of them will be standing, which are the easy ones in my point of view. And other ones will be sitting. As always, the breakdown of the references will come first, and then we will select a few poses and start drawing each one of them. If you are interested in only a few of these poses, feel free to watch only those lessons. This class is a part of a series that will revolve around character design. If you want to create meaningful characters that will speak to your viewers, that will be different, special, and that will have a story. You should definitely follow the whole series. This is what the series will look like. Each month, we will cover all sorts of things such as character portraits, expressions, full body poses, costumes, illustration, cinematic posters, even props. And finally, I will show you how to create your very first art portfolio. I know that a lot of you publish your artwork on social media. So don't be a stranger. Let's connect and keep inspiring each other. Find me on Instagram as M lara underscore Arc escape and send me a direct message with a simple high. I would love to chat about ARP, answer any art related questions, and become artsy friends. Come join my small art community. My TikTok account is also growing and it will soon surpass my Instagram so it could become my main platform. Make sure to follow and let's get to know each other. I have the same handle is on Instagram if you would like to follow me. And because I know it's really difficult to grow on Instagram, I want to help you grow faster than I did If my class has helped you even one bit, tag me on your posts and they will share your art on my stories. Not only that, but if you submit your projects in the skill share classes from this series, I will feature your work on the next class. No one will do the work for you. So I wanted to compensate you for your work with a little bit of extra exposure. You will also create your portfolio bit by bit this way. So without any further ado, let's get started with the first lesson. 2. Poses Breakdown: Hello guys and welcome to the first part of this class, where we will take some references or various poses and break them down a bit. I feel like generally beginner artists tend to understand better or faster how standing poses work, but they tend to avoid crunched or sitting poses. The thing with this poses is that the line of action tends to be shorter and the gesture might not be as fluid as a standing boats. Also, it might be intimidating to draw lakes that are crunched, that hold the weight of the body and that feel like they are intention all the time. But not worry. We will do what we always do and gather references first, break them down and understand what we are looking at. And only after we understand, we will start drawing on our own. Let's first choose a few references. I saved some sitting positions from Pinterest and I want to bring them all on a mood board, which we will then safe to use as a reference for when we will draw. One of my students, one of you guys, lift the review at some point asking to see the whole process of creating a mood board. So here it is. I have all of my references already saved in my gallery. So all I have to do now is important photo on the Canvas. They will be automatically imported on different layers. And you can choose to resize and position each one however you want. If you want a nice mood for it, I would put a nice pastel orange on the background, grab a textured brush and create some almost white frames on top of each reference. I would also do the in-between references for some extra interests. But I didn't really think that foreign when I recorded this video. I only want it to have a reference sheet to work from later. But you will see in the recap lesson at the end of the class how it will look like if you stylize it a bit. Alright, so by now I finished preparing the reference sheet, and now let's study this references. The pulses are from our darkest dark and you can find them on Pinterest, on DeviantArt, on Instagram. Feel truly anywhere. Let's group these layers by dragging H1 to the right, tap on group. Then what I do is I grabbed the group to the left and duplicate it. Then with the duplicated group, I flatten it. I usually don't need it to be duplicated, but I still duplicated so I can have a safe Copy. Now I can lower the opacity for all the references in one go, which is exactly what I'm going to do. Now let's draw on a separate layer over the reference. And no, we will not trace the poses because that will not help us. We will try to understand what the line of action is. What shapes should we use to draw the body on our own? Let's start by emphasizing the line of action first. Generally, the line of action is the longest uninterrupted line of the flows. We could on the 110, consider this our line of action, starting from the top of the head and ending on the fingertips. This is not the longest line of action, but it is enhanced by the almost parallel line created by the sword. But we will not stop at the fingertips because the extended leg is in the front, which is not accidental. Let's go ahead and make one full line of action out of it. So it will look like this. This is beautiful. This is the line of action that we will guide ourselves after. Moving on. This is not the most dynamic both, but you can definitely use it for a nice casual illustration. Maybe you will place it in a countryside setting, so similar to the one before the line of action will go like this. I really liked this next preference and you probably already saw that I even colored this one for the thumbnail. In the next pose, It's easy to see the line of action. The final one is a bit more difficult. I would say it's like this. But if I were to draw this, I would feel the need to adjust the pose a bit. Okay, so now that we identify the lines of action, let's proceed into breaking down the poses. The best thing you can do if you feel overwhelmed by a post is to try and draw simple shapes. Let's try this on this arm. First, I mark the shoulder and the elbow with two circles, connect them with lines. And we will now mark the volume of this shape. We will basically have a cylinder for this part of the arm and then another one for the forearm. When doing this exercise, try not to worry about the actual shape of the forearm and all the details. Try to understand shapes and volumes. You can do this for the whole body to want to understand it better. Moving on to the rest of the body, we will make a simple shape like this for the torso, time-of-flight, the chest plate, then a small rectangle for the belly, and then another shape for the hips. I'm drawing next to our model so we can better see what they wanted to do and how I break down the process without necessarily tracing it. For the legs, you can do something similar to the arms if you want to understand the volume better. This will later help you with your shading so that effort was definitely not be wasted. For the leg that's kneeling on the ground, make sure you capture the point of pressure around the knees, where you will see the small curve on the call. Another point of pressure will be around the fruit where it's bent. So try to capture that nice angle as well. Finally, we will add the second arm and the position of the head. Front ahead, I explained what lines to follow for drawing portraits back in the fortress class of the series. If you miss it, pass this class and go watch that right now. Okay, So if we remove the underlying references, this is what we have by drawing basic shapes only. The pose is already very reasonable, even without adding any details and stylization. Let's move on to the next references and do essentially the same thing. I included the references sheet in the resources section. So if you want, you can draw along with me. There's nothing more to explain over here. So I will let you watch until the end, and I will see you on the next lesson. 3. Kneeling Pose: Welcome back, guys. After breaking down each pose in the last lesson, I will now draw from scratch, free of those poses and stylize them into a new original character. We already know that this is the line of the action. We established that in the previous lesson. I will start drawing the shapes that we discussed previously while following the gesture line. I will also use the liquify tool when necessary, in order to correct some shapes or exaggerate parts of the photos. In the end, when we stylize, that means we exaggerate in order to emphasize the part of the post that really stands out. I usually draw the hands too big when I'm sketching. So you will see that I keep adjusting them as I advanced with the sketch. For the purpose of this post, I think I will keep the high hills, although I'm not exactly a fan of those. When drawing hands, it's useful to take note of the overall shape that the hand is creating and what the purposes for each finger. I find that it really helps me to draw the hands better and faster that way. Okay, so now we are going to stylize a bit and start creating our own character. I want to have a short haired character with a really competent to look unfair. And maybe some script ninja look. I want her to have shorts, a tank top, and her mid section will be covered in bandages because it's a frightening gel-like thing to do. So I love drawing high socks on my female characters and an asymmetric accessories such as a single globe. I also want to make some kind of jewelry high on her arms. Now that I have some sort of a sketch finished, I will lower the opacity and I will create a more refined sketch that will have more features like the face, the hair, and the jewelry. During this phase, I also like to create some details on the clothes like faults or a belt and stuff like that. This is also the phase where we will resize certain elements if we think it's necessary. Because after this clean sketch phase, we will have the line art. So it's preferable to have all the small details figured out already. Thanks. If you have been here for awhile, you already know what my favorite line art brushes. But in case you are new, you can find my brush back in the resources section. You will find some render brushes too. But I promise you the best one is the line art one. Thanks. Alright, so this is the final result. I kind of liked this character and we'll keep using her design for the next pose as well. I will see you on the next lesson with the new foods. 4. On a Swing: Welcome back to our second poll study. We will now draw the swing pose, which I'm really looking forward to you is it is my favorite. Again, we will start from the gesture line. Since the pulse is quite elongated, I will sketch the body as a stick figure and start adding volumes after death. Somehow the legs catch my eyes the most. So I will start by drawing deals and resize them as I go. You don't need to worry about the sketch being pretty at this stage, you only need a silhouette that you will keep detailing over and over. Now I'm adding in the swings ropes and I will try to add more tension compared to the reference. So it will look like she's pushing against the ropes because she's now swinging forward. Now I will reduce the opacity of the sketch and start adding more details on a new layer. I will add the clothes, the hair, and the face. And then I will jump into the line art. This is it with this pose? You already know this, but I liked it a lot. So I also ended up coloring it for the thumbnail. I will see you on the next lesson where we will go in depth on the next pose, sitting on a bench with the profile view. See you soon. 5. Side View on a Bench: Okay guys, we're back and we're going to draw this beautiful pose sitting on a bench. I love how the back is arched and how she looks over her shoulder as if being called by someone that's outside of the picture. Just like before, I will start from something like a stick man that will show me the basic orientation and proportions. And then I will start adding simple shapes and volumes. I struggled a bit with how large I should make her legs, especially towards the body. So I kept adjusting, yes. Which leads to fight. I've said this before and I will say it again. There's nothing wrong with using digital tools when drawing digitally, you may hear people say that digital art is not real art and that the computer does everything. But you should already know that it couldn't be farther from the truth. It's like if you had really expensive paints and brushes, you wouldn't use them on a canvas because they did the work for you. It's not true, of course, it takes a lot of time to master the tools you have at your disposal. And every form of art has different word patterns. That being said, I will let you watch the rest of this post and I will see you on the next lesson where we will start drawing standing poses. See you soon. 6. Elegant Walk: Okay guys, so we already drew three different sitting poses. I hope you took the time to draw along with me in order to form that muscle memory of drawing. Because I'm sure that just by watching your visual memory already knows what needs to be done. But you can't become a better artist without actually practicing. So let's now move on three different standing poses. I'm still using the darkest dark for this poses, and I'm simply importing the pictures from the gallery. Now let's save this reference and bring it up on the side. I want to start with this silicon posts kind of looks like an elegant flocking maybe, maybe in a way that would be illustrated in a princess story. For this sketch phase, I had to lower the contrast of the video for a couple of minutes so you could see the thin lines that are used by accident. It will go back to normal after two minutes, don't worry. So in standing poses, it's even easier to use the Stickman method to create your polls really fast. It's actually the way that I learned to diversify my poses. I would try to draw complex poses in ten to 40 seconds. And that time only allowed me to do was stick man and the gesture line. If you do this enough times, you eventually will up the time ligament and you will start having time for body volumes as well. The more you exercise them, the more natural it will feel to place certain curves in the same places no matter what the post is. Alright, so after we sketch the board, we will use the liquify tool for some subtle adjustments and then we will add some clothes. Really important part of this pose, RD arms, especially the hands because the character is keeping them up elegantly. And she is even looking towards one of her hands. That's the hands that will need to be really well-made. While the one in the background can have less detail. I'm thinking of recording the hands practice session for you guys in the near future. If you're interested in that, let me know in the comments. Finally, after adding all the details on the sketch, we will start to finding the line art. Don't forget to diversify your line weight. 7. Taunting - Standing Pose: Okay guys, up next we have what I call the counting posts. It might as well be a fighting stance. I'm not sure, but I feel like she's taunting someone to come at her. I want to exaggerate this one and Brinker front leg even more in the front. And I want her upper body to lean more backwards. The upper side of the arm will follow the line of the body and add to this nice rhythm. Her leg in the back is slightly foreshortened. So you need to think about it as if looking at the cylinder from above, it will be thicker upwards and you will not be able to see part of the proof. The head also has a really nice upside down Gold. The whole pose is coherent and has a story. Now that we have our bows, I will start adding the characters, features, and clothes. When it comes to close, I love drawing standing poses because it's so much easier to see what's what. I hope you guys are practicing this teal and that you are already preparing your projects for this class. But Tiffany, if you weren't, that's okay. Take your time. This is the final result. Now it's time to move on to the final standing pose, which I might also use later on for a complete illustration. I will see you on the next lesson. 8. Dancing with a Fan: Okay guys, we are at our final pose, one that I really like and might re-purpose for a separate illustration. One thing you should know when it comes to drawing standing poses is that the lines of the shoulder and the hips should not be parallel? Yes, in reality they are. But any illustration parallel indicates a lack of dynamism. So you can see I exaggerated the lines of the hip and the one of the shoulder. And the hip now goes up on the left side. By now you should already know that we need to make a stick figure for the pose. And this is a really easy pose with the only difficulty maybe towards the hands. I'm not entirely sure I liked the modals left hand position. I might change it later on. Okay, So I finished the overall post. Now we will lower the opacity of this layer, bring up our character reference, and start adding the details. I find it funny that even if it's the sixth time when I draw this character, I still need to see the first drawing I made for it so that it looks like the same character. Well, I have a short memory, I guess. Okay, so now that we've finished our detailed sketch, we will lower the opacity of this layer and start working on the liner. Just a reminder that you can find a liner brush that I use in the resources section of this class. So that's pretty much it for this class. I hope that you have a clear view of what needs to be done when drawing poses. And if you still have questions, let me know in the comments. I will see you guys in the recap lesson. 9. Recap: Okay guys, so we went from six different poses in this lesson. Three of them sitting and free of them standing. Based on this poses, we could define, create the character design page in our portfolio, but more on the portfolio site worst end of the series. I hope you guys managed to draw along, but if you didn't, no worries because you will have the chance to work on your project. More details about that in the final lesson. 10. Project and Final Words: Congratulations for finalizing this fourth glass from the Character Design Crash Course. I'm so excited to be doing this series of classes and I hope you are loving it as well so far. I'm hoping to see many entries from you guys because no matter how many classes or tutorials you watch, whether they are free or paid, not working on what you learn will get nowhere. If you watch this class until the end, I know that you are one of the people determined to learn and get better results. So demonstrate that by publishing your project, you will get detailed feedback and you will also get featured on the next class. Your project is to draw two sitting poses and to standing poses. Try to make them dynamic and follow the gesture line from the chosen and references. I will include the references that I used on the resources section. So you could use those or you could find your own. If you want, you can only draw the posers, but I recommend you try to stylize this poses for your own character because later you will use these drawings in the first portfolio. If you found this class useful in any way, I would love it if you followed me on Skillshare so you could get constant updates on my new classes in-between the classes of the series, I'm sometimes creating a shorter class in a draw with me style. Last month there was one about drawing a mermaid. Also, please follow me on Instagram as well. It's where I share all of my work free to five times a week depending on how much time I have for drawing. I took a break in June, but I will be back on track after I finished editing this class on TikTok, I posted two to three times every single day. I absolutely loved the community over there. I might start including shorter tutorials over there as well. The next class within this series will be about drawing costumes. If you have any specific questions on the topic, don't be afraid to ask in the comments. Or you can DM me on Instagram about it. Until next time. Feel free to watch my older classes for more details on coloring. And I will see you guys soon. Have a great day, a great week, and a great drawing session. Bye guys.