[Sarcastic] Tutorial: How to Get Figures to Sit in Hero Forge
This is very limited if you don't have pro, but I do cover the free versions of sitting, which sounds like something they'd charge someone for in the Outerworlds world.
...ummm... alrighty!
Let's get your minis from sad and standing to sitting in a chair and content!
For more, click below, also this doesn't cover making kitbash chairs as I am focusing on just sitting/getting the legs to look right.
Before we get to methods, I want to quickly cover one big red 'no'
Do not bend their torso to sit.
Do you bend your back halfway down to sit?
Cool, alright, you might want to avoid the feds because apparently you're some sort of hyper-flexible alien living among us, and frankly I'd just hope you'd avoid being put in some creepy prison for alien experiments.
I can show you how to depict humanoid/human sitting, though. We use joints to sit. Mainly the one at the top of the legs, in the hips.
I have found at least two pose references that have the character bent from the middle of the torso, and I have gotten my model, Dosia, to agree to demonstrate it instead of digging up the poses from the community page. (She's well compensated with physical therapy and weird-pose-reversal techniques. That is the reversal of weird poses, not a weird-pose reversal.)
I think I can see how people get to this point, they see a middle-ish single point and click the rotate button and move the character so the block/whatever is beneath the butt, and boom, sitting! Except it's just a kind of mangled back. So you can move the back, it's great for lots of poses, I'm just saying you don't want to have the character sitting by only bending the back, that's not how humans/humanoids with our skeletal shape sit. (Leaving space for those with alternate skeletal systems.)
Here's a little more on the joints, showing a highlighted figure for emphasis
Method 1: Sitting without paying for pro+ features!
The easiest way to get someone to sit is to use the 'ride' function as seen in the stage options.
Pictured: how to change the sitting pose in the chair, to sit with legs together instead of the default legs open.
There is one more free sitting option (unless you are being pedantic and are counting various sitting devices as options, in which case you can go count how many chairs/surfaces they can sit on and think about that. Yay.)
Notice something interesting about the sitting on the ground pose? The legs bend at the hip! Yep! No weird bent back in lieu of manipulating the hip joint/legs (like humans do)
It's a decent pose to start a lot of bent over or sitting poses where you want the backside defined, because the starting pose kind of preserves that. That's something to keep in mind if you don't want to spend hours fixing some kind of skirt, either kitbash it into place or start with it how you like it and move the rest of the body into the pose.
Method 2: Kitbashing (costs money for pro+)
The first is just bending the legs at the top of the legs and then bending the knees down, you'll get this, a version shown starting from standing pose.
The second image shows the backside of the image, as you can see, the backside is less defined as the backside is made to look 'right' when standing, gets changed to look like that when sitting. Showing this for comparison, so you can choose which you'd prefer for whatever pose you're doing.
To compare, here are the front and back of the same pose, but the starting pose was the 'sitting on the ground' pose shown above.
See? more defined backside, which is appropriate for poses where the backside may be more of a feature (your mileage may vary, just showing the difference here.)
An advantage of the sitting on ground pose also helps with poses like this, where the legs move a bit more than normal: the backside retains its shape and in this it isn't eaten by the pose. It looks more natural
This is the standing version of the same basic pose, Dosia here has been imported to an older upload of mine, and as you can see the butt is not really seen in the pose because of the chair. So it doesn't exactly matter if the starting point is sitting or standing. I used to start by standing by default because I didn't know the difference.
As a last note, please don't feel bad if you've ever bent the wrong part in your humanoid figures. It's ok, we all make mistakes. I don't have an extensive visual history of all of my hero forge mistakes, but trust me I have messed up a lot of basic stuff. In part, that's how we learn. Frankly I'm sure there are plenty between this blog and my deviantart, in case you wanna locate that sort of thing.
Be kind to yourself, learn from your mistakes, and keep making fun poses
This one is a bit more 'retro' and a bit more of a concept of the classic characters. I have used the 2010s characters to swap, as those are the ones I had on hand. (Previously I used various character models and a 1960s theme) [plus John Boddy for Femme!Boddy/Black]
There's one I'm in the midst of creating - the Clue comic book people, but otherwise this is the rest. Mostly older character version. I also have some new genderswapped ones, that I will place in a separate post as that's a bit more conceptual
They're labeled in alt text, but for what it's worth I have put them labelled below for good measure.
Miss Scarlet 1949, Mr. Green 1949, Professor Plum 1949
Mrs. White 1949, Mrs. Peacock 1949, Colonel Mustard 1949
Prince Azure 2003, Miss Peach 2003,
Lady Lavender 2003, Lord Gray 2003,
Mrs. Meadow-Brook 2003, Rusty 2003,
Captain Brown 1986, Mr. John Boddy 2005ish, Inspector Brown from the DVD game,
Ghost Mrs. White as a living person, Mrs. White concept that was cut for Dr. Orchid
I have revived my old deviantart to put up the hero forge pics
CallunaVulgar1s is an artist on DeviantArt. I have had this for ages, and the earlier stuff is all old dollmaker creations that I liked to m
'tis me, just putting it here in case I ghost this page again. Much of the postings are repeats from here except one or two odd conceptual ones I liked putting in one big folder of related weirdness.
Notably, for the tumblr connection, I have connected my main blog. That's just a for what it's worth, since this is a side blog and I've had that one linked for yearsssssss
Some elemental queens, and a brief highlight of a Hero Forge legend
the user KNIGHT WITCH would be considered legendary in my estimation. I do not know their pronouns, but I default to she/her for her based on vibes. (It's hard to know online if no one specifically states them.)
Anyway, so, here I have used her pose "Lady of Thornes" to create genasi (elemental D&D species) based queen-figures. I was inspired by her design and decided to modify it slightly. I will show both of her "Lady of Thornes" uploads as she uploaded them at the end.
As you can see I chose very typical backgrounds for the various elements, and one of the many genasi variants I have in my saved files for that. (I have a few more for earth than the others, as for air, fire, and water I created sets with lighter or darker skin tones, but for earth i have sets based on iron, sandstone, stone, and quartz. There are also sets of 'hybrid' genasi that are the would-be children of an earth genasi and a fire genasi, and so on for the rest. The Earth genasi woman pictured here has a set based on the 'earth spirit' skin tone available from hero forge.)
These were created because of the genasi set, because when I think of the elementals, I also think of the seasons and eladrin elves. As we know, an eladrin would be one character who can appear in spring/summer/fall/winter as they choose at the beginning of the day, but for this I have chosen four separate people.
Now for the originals by KNIGHT WITCH; both pictured are her "Lady of Thornes" uploads as they were intended (without me modifying anything.)
as a last note: if you are using her body-forms or poses for anything, just note that she does kitbash the body shapes heavily. They can be modified, technically, but as you can see I have chosen just to modify colors and the face, as with kitbash clothing modifying body type would become a whole 'nother project.
She has many more lovely uploads, this is just based off of these two here
The concept is simple: I wanted to portray representations of the zodiac signs with a kind of goddess look, while keeping it simple.
The reasoning for which color is which is below the cut:
Quoting a reddit post that made the most sense, since if you search "zodiac colors" there are a few that are indisputable, such as Aries, but many of the others vary from source to source.
Also, the credits for kitbashed items is included below
"To answer your question, yes and no. We can see that earth signs have quite neutral colours, green brown and grey. Like the earth.
Fire signs have intense colours. Aries and Leo have orange and red which is not surprising - colours of fire. Sagittarius has purple because its the colour of openness and awareness.
Water signs though are more about their planets (cancer and the moon being silver, Scorpio associated with Pluto and death, Pisces with Neptune and the sea being turquoise).
Air signs are about their vibe. Gemini being yellow shows they are open, social and energetic. Libra is not too bold, yet known to be charming. Aquarians are known as the most intelligent zodiac, and the colour of intelligence is blue."
-this user, here (/r/astrology)
I'm going to credit all of the kitbash creators:
First, KNIGHT WITCH, who created the body, pose, photo booth settings that I modified a little, and the kitbashed clothing.
Uploads:
Modular Divine Top, Modular Design Skirt v1
Then the hairs which I will label by the zodiac sign represented/in order
Aries: AKR Twist Esc Bun by TinyTiefling
Taurus: Intricate Braided Ponytail AHR by breethebookworm
Gemini: AKR Curly Updo by TinyTiefling
Cancer: Bun w Faceframing Strands AHR by breethebookworm
Leo: Princess Hair AHR by breethebookworm
Virgo: Half Up Half Down w Braid AHR by breethebookworm
Libra: Curtain Bangs High Bun AHR by breethebookworm
Scorpio: AKR Long Braided Ponytail by TinyTiefling
Sagittarius: AKR Long Braids and a Bun by TinyTiefling
Capricorn: AHR Curly Bob by Demonprawn
Aquarius: AKR Dec Blunt Bang Bun by: iotesshield
Pisces: AKR Princess Braided Bun by TinyTiefling
I created the faces, paints, and whatever else is left after the listed items. If anyone wants any of the face sculpts, some of them are in uploads, like Aries, who is Ms. Scarlett from Clue/Cluedo, for example. [The whole notion of that led me down a rabbit whole trying to match up clue characters with zodiac signs purely through color, and I learned there is a Mrs. Silver in the original version, who was cut. I abandoned that for now, but I like the idea of such a match up, it is odd.]
Sometimes I make the pose and decide whether I like it or not while I am trying to make it. I like everything but what the woman is doing with her hands as it just seems odd. (But also, who cares?) I do like poses that seem casual in some way though, so here it is
Round Up for Today: References of References and Acrobatics
The two references are the Fallout 76 trailer moment that references the opening song of The Sound of Music, and the opening song from The Sound of Music.
The Acrobatics are the handstand and "acrobatic jump"
The last one is a dress I made after the update, to use the new shirt as an outfit. (I say this in the description but i think it looks 1870s-80s, which would likely mean a bustle, if anyone kitbashes that I'll probably note it here.)
That bodice would also make a great top for high rise breeches or pants, but alas, that's really only available by decals, and not an actual option.
Uploads:
WV Hills are Alive APR
The Hills are Alive APR
Handstand APR
Acrobatic Jump APR
Victorian Dress V2 ACR AKR
[note: there's no version 1 anymore, I had tried to make one on a mini, but it turned out weird. (looks better transferred from the one pictured than it did when I tried to make a second one.]
Also the "acrobatic jump" is from posemyart, it looks familiar to me and I'm not sure if it's a famous reference to something
I've taken to getting quite literal with the titles unless something more interesting comes to me. (I think it might help the search function, in case people are looking for such a pose, though.)
I uploaded the chair from my community highlight post recently. It was scaled to fit the smaller characters (not the true proportion humans I usually work with) so I made a gnome character reading for the upload. It should work with mini-scale people, halflings, gnomes, and dwarves easily if anyone wants to use it. I find the kitbash collapse to be a mystery, so I really hope it does not do that.
Upload: Gnome Reading Chair APR AKR
It's been a while so I will clarify: anything I talk about being an upload is on the community tab on the heroforge website. No one has asked for the link elsewhere so I just stick to referring to the community tab. [I see folks on reddit linking their stuff, I don't see a demand for it here.]
Three of these are uploads I have done, and the fourth is part of an idea I have
Poses from left to right:
Side Profile Catwalk APR, Side Profile APR
Ready for the Beach 1906, and an unnamed pose with elves
The fashion design poses are from fashion design templates I found on a basic image search. It is fun to try and replicate them for me, and frankly sometimes they do not translate to heroforge for whatever reason. [The walking woman is wearing the fungril skirt, as I understand everyone who has pro has access to it now? I don't use the marked stuff usually, but I really liked the movement of the skirt/sash.]
"Ready for the Beach 1906" is a silly pose I came up with when I saw an upload with an eyepatch bikini. It was very well done, and I had the idea that a juxtaposition of a historical bathing suit that covered so much of the skin would be a humorous juxtaposition. [I also thought 'oo I wonder if I can make it look kind of accurate!' and idk, it looks old timey at least.] Also I forgot to do the photo mode before I uploaded, but I gave it a really simple background treatment for this, in case anyone wanted to do a similar thing with their own character.
Kind of accurate! There really need to be some stripe options for decals, but I made it work. [The beach image here was the source]
To explain the last one, recently I have been tinkering with editing the images to make it seem as though a big group is all together or all in a line. I did that with some characters using the model duo pose from the last post, but it was the same pose repeated and mirrored over and over again. I think it would look interesting to have any sort of group in a row doing mundane activities to be more visually interesting. The base has to be the same for each group of two and they should all be photographed at the right proportional scale to make it work. It'd be great for like D&D groups, since a lot of folks use Heroforge to create the image of their player characters.
The series of poses are by MrDSir, I'll list them below. I have put in the characters/outfits and made the chair. (He used a couch, the couch from his upload collapses when I opened it.)
The uploads are from 2024 originally and I found the concept interesting. I originally tried to take the image from heroforge of them seated and edit that onto a seat, which i did, and it looked so bad. (I am not adept at photo editing! But it was fun to try.)
Example with that version of true neutral below:
The problems are mainly in scale. This was scaled to minis, so when I made the chair to fit the pose it really worked best with elves, gnomes, dwarves, and halflings. (The vampire pictured is an exception, though I may have made her a little bit shorter.) It just took too much work to make it look natural, when making a kitbash chair would at least keep it in the same category of image.
Back for More: Lara Croft and the miscellaneous other creations
I have a fair few Lara Croft attempts, and now that they have the leash that's kitbashable, there's a whole thing where I can just create infinite (well near infinite, to the limit of the kitbash engine and my patience,) belts and belt-adjacent things. Here's a take of the classic Lara Croft I made yesterday, at the top.
Upload: Classic Lara Croft
Up next: the fashion design template poses
Left to right uploads: APR Casual Fashion Mode, DAPR Fashion Design Template, APR Fashion Model [the second two are uploaded with the robot mannequin that doesn't do well on tumblr as it gets tagged as possible adult content due to the mannequin being undressed.]
Left to right: Two Lara Crofts created after the 2010s-era video game character in the fashion model pose (with a divider to show the first and more recent attempts to create that character.) APR Dance Practice and DAPR Ball Room Dancing are up as mannequins in the community tab, the Ball room dancing one includes a weird outfit as I intended to make a ballgown again, but decided just to show off the leg work with pants.
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