So difficulty with posing is usually a symptom of another underlying problem.
I’ll focus on poses for now, and I’ll discuss framing in another post!
I shan’t talk too much about this, as there’s a fantastic video series by stan prokopenko about gesture & figure drawing that you can find here! :
and you can find more on the subject in my gesture tag here:
http://helpfulharrie.tumblr.com/tagged/gesture
You need to reframe your thinking!
Posing is a word that brings to mind picking up a toy to arrange its limbs into a certain position, or asking a fashion model to stand in a way that shows off all their clothes, etc. Ultimately, it’s a very stiff and lifeless word about putting something into a static position, and it’s not how I’d recommend approaching your art!
Instead you want to think about how your subjects are acting - they’re living, breathing characters, and you’re just catching a snapshot of them while they are doing something. The image you’re drawing may be still, but the character inside it is not.
This is especially important in comics and sequential media, but even in a single image you want to think about what your subject is doing, how they’re feeling, and how you want to convey this.
Consider your character’s body language, and when drawing a conversation think about how your character gesticulates.
It’s not uncommon in animation to get up and physically act out what you want to animate. It’s good practice, it’s easier to understand what you’re drawing if you do it yourself!
I recommend studying films and paying close attention to how the characters are acting. try watching a single scene a few times, and watch how the characters express themselves.
For example, watch this clip from kung fu panda 3!
It’s just 12 seconds, but pay attention to how the characters act. If I were to make this into a comic page it’d probably look something like this:
Do you see how the characters’ acting informs the still poses :?
For some further reading you can find some posts about body language in this tag: http://helpfulharrie.tumblr.com/tagged/body%20language
as well as a post i wrote last year about making poses dynamic: http://helpfulharrie.tumblr.com/post/146669907351/do-you-have-any-personal-tips-for-making-and-poses
And an exercise I would highly recommend doing is this body language one: https://paraparano.deviantart.com/art/Body-Language-Meme-182498610
It’s like those expression memes, but instead you’re focusing on the whole figure!
Also, when thinking about your characters’ acting, don’t forget about how they might interact with props or things in their environment!
Part of the problem might be that they don’t feel grounded in the scene, leading you to feel like something is lacking. Roger rabbit is a fantastic example of how to ground characters in an environment:
The toons obviously aren’t real, but they feel like they’re tangible and inside the scene because they pick up props, physically interact with people, smash into tables, and just generally leave a real impact on the world around them.
Try remember to show how your characters are interacting with the things around them to really sell their acting! Best of luck, I hope this helps!!
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