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Posing
Posting a response here that I made on the Manga Revolution forums to someone who wanted ideas for poses, to have in case I want to do something further with it one day.
First, gather some information:
1. Think about your character's personality. Deeper than just "outgoing" or "shy." What's his favorite color? What sort of pet does she have? Is he always hungry? Does she like to sing? That sort of thing - make sure your character is a fully-rounded individual, and not a cookie-cutter. Keep that in mind as you...
2. Think about the character's setting. Where does he live? What places does she visit? What sort of objects does your character handle on a daily basis? Gloves? A sword? A backpack overloaded with schoolbooks? Keeping those in mind...
3. What emotion/mood do you want to portray in this picture? Joy? Fear? Badassitude? Love? Shyness? Quiet and stillness? Power? Then...
4. Is this going to be a character pin-up, showing mainly the character's design and personality, flavored with the emotion you're trying to portray - the sort of thing where the character is posing-with-a-capital-P in the sort of posture and attitude one wouldn't display in real life, and is looking out at the viewer like they're aware of being looked at (and which may not ahve a realistic background)? Or is it a slice-of-life picture, with the character placed firmly in their world, doing something they might do during the course of their life, with their focus placed firmly on things within the picture? Finally...
5. What sort of shapes do you want in the picture? Well-balanced rectangles? Triangles with bases firmly placed on the ground? Or something off-balance and active? What do you want the viewer to see first - the character's face? Or what the character is holding? Or perhaps the action the character is performing?
Once you work out all of that, you'll have a better idea of the sort of pose your character is going to take. Their personality, their surroundings and daily movements/actions, the mood of the piece, the type of picture, and the basic shapes of the composition will suggest some poses and disallow others.
Sketch out a few ideas - your first few ideas will probably not be very good (unless you're hit with inspiration) because you need to get stereotypes and basic mental dross out of your head to let the truly creative ideas flow. You may choose to go look at how other artists or photographers handled the sort of ideas you're trying to portray, or you may prefer to pull on your own inner resources. (As an aside, poses can't be copyrighted, because there's only so many basic ways you can position the human body. Whether you work better by feeding your subconscious with examples, or by isolating yourself from outside influences is completely down to your own working style.)
You may find yourself changing something in your original plan as you develop the pose - change it from a pin-up to a scene, or change the mood from playful to dramatic.
I've found that people respond to pictures that (a) tell a story of some sort - depict a moment that allows you to imagine what's about to happen or what happened just previously, something that gives the characters a life beyond the boundaries of the picture; or (b) depict a strong emotion or mood - you want it practically dripping off the page.
To show you what I mean, I just did a quick browse on DA for digital fanart paintings, and sorted the last month's submissions by popularity, and grabbed three from the top ten:
A) Zaphk's Makafushigi Adventure perfectly encapsulates what I mean by "telling a story." Son Goku's captured in the act of stealing an egg - his pose is the moment before he lays a hand on one, teeteringly balanced on his staff, stretching his arm out. The viewer is left to wonder if the mother is about to arrive, or if Goku's going to lose his balance. The composition is unbalanced, with Goku forming an equilateral triangle balanced on one point, stretching to the right.
B) Pokefreak's Konan Uncloaked is a perfect pin-up example. "Pin-up", in comic parlance, doesn't mean "sexy pose", it refers to a page or picture that features a character(s) in any sort of pose, meant to be displayed instead of being part of a story. The overall mood/emotion of Konan Uncloaked is power, strength, and confidence. The point of view is from above, which *usually* diminishes a character, but works brilliantly in the opposite fashion in this case, allowing her broad, strong shoulders to feature, and the determined look in her eyes and the set of her mouth to inform the rest of the picture. It's helped along by her arms and the outstretched leg forming a solid rectangle firmly placed on the ground - if her feet had been together, she'd have formed an unbalanced upside-down triangle, which would have worked against the mood.
C) A different type of pin-up is Ecthelian's Take Me Home, which features a chibi Ichimaru Gin. What makes this picture is not the chibi-ness, but the pose: Gin just standing there would have been cute, but not so cute as to make it this popular. Instead, Gin is in a coy pose, arm and foot pointing, other hand up to his mouth as if he were shy. But we know he's not, that he's a sly character, and that he's got something else up his sleeve. The tension between the pose and the personality make the picture pop.
Hopefully I've given you some ideas to think about, if you've made it to the end of this comment! :D
First, gather some information:
1. Think about your character's personality. Deeper than just "outgoing" or "shy." What's his favorite color? What sort of pet does she have? Is he always hungry? Does she like to sing? That sort of thing - make sure your character is a fully-rounded individual, and not a cookie-cutter. Keep that in mind as you...
2. Think about the character's setting. Where does he live? What places does she visit? What sort of objects does your character handle on a daily basis? Gloves? A sword? A backpack overloaded with schoolbooks? Keeping those in mind...
3. What emotion/mood do you want to portray in this picture? Joy? Fear? Badassitude? Love? Shyness? Quiet and stillness? Power? Then...
4. Is this going to be a character pin-up, showing mainly the character's design and personality, flavored with the emotion you're trying to portray - the sort of thing where the character is posing-with-a-capital-P in the sort of posture and attitude one wouldn't display in real life, and is looking out at the viewer like they're aware of being looked at (and which may not ahve a realistic background)? Or is it a slice-of-life picture, with the character placed firmly in their world, doing something they might do during the course of their life, with their focus placed firmly on things within the picture? Finally...
5. What sort of shapes do you want in the picture? Well-balanced rectangles? Triangles with bases firmly placed on the ground? Or something off-balance and active? What do you want the viewer to see first - the character's face? Or what the character is holding? Or perhaps the action the character is performing?
Once you work out all of that, you'll have a better idea of the sort of pose your character is going to take. Their personality, their surroundings and daily movements/actions, the mood of the piece, the type of picture, and the basic shapes of the composition will suggest some poses and disallow others.
Sketch out a few ideas - your first few ideas will probably not be very good (unless you're hit with inspiration) because you need to get stereotypes and basic mental dross out of your head to let the truly creative ideas flow. You may choose to go look at how other artists or photographers handled the sort of ideas you're trying to portray, or you may prefer to pull on your own inner resources. (As an aside, poses can't be copyrighted, because there's only so many basic ways you can position the human body. Whether you work better by feeding your subconscious with examples, or by isolating yourself from outside influences is completely down to your own working style.)
You may find yourself changing something in your original plan as you develop the pose - change it from a pin-up to a scene, or change the mood from playful to dramatic.
I've found that people respond to pictures that (a) tell a story of some sort - depict a moment that allows you to imagine what's about to happen or what happened just previously, something that gives the characters a life beyond the boundaries of the picture; or (b) depict a strong emotion or mood - you want it practically dripping off the page.
To show you what I mean, I just did a quick browse on DA for digital fanart paintings, and sorted the last month's submissions by popularity, and grabbed three from the top ten:
A) Zaphk's Makafushigi Adventure perfectly encapsulates what I mean by "telling a story." Son Goku's captured in the act of stealing an egg - his pose is the moment before he lays a hand on one, teeteringly balanced on his staff, stretching his arm out. The viewer is left to wonder if the mother is about to arrive, or if Goku's going to lose his balance. The composition is unbalanced, with Goku forming an equilateral triangle balanced on one point, stretching to the right.
B) Pokefreak's Konan Uncloaked is a perfect pin-up example. "Pin-up", in comic parlance, doesn't mean "sexy pose", it refers to a page or picture that features a character(s) in any sort of pose, meant to be displayed instead of being part of a story. The overall mood/emotion of Konan Uncloaked is power, strength, and confidence. The point of view is from above, which *usually* diminishes a character, but works brilliantly in the opposite fashion in this case, allowing her broad, strong shoulders to feature, and the determined look in her eyes and the set of her mouth to inform the rest of the picture. It's helped along by her arms and the outstretched leg forming a solid rectangle firmly placed on the ground - if her feet had been together, she'd have formed an unbalanced upside-down triangle, which would have worked against the mood.
C) A different type of pin-up is Ecthelian's Take Me Home, which features a chibi Ichimaru Gin. What makes this picture is not the chibi-ness, but the pose: Gin just standing there would have been cute, but not so cute as to make it this popular. Instead, Gin is in a coy pose, arm and foot pointing, other hand up to his mouth as if he were shy. But we know he's not, that he's a sly character, and that he's got something else up his sleeve. The tension between the pose and the personality make the picture pop.
Hopefully I've given you some ideas to think about, if you've made it to the end of this comment! :D
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please tattoo this on my drawing hand, will you? I tend to give up after the first couple piles of suck.
Also, this nicely dovetails with my thinking that maybe I need to do a few pin-ups to get back into the swing of thing, because the scene I've roughed out is just intimidating the hell out of me.
Thanks!
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You're welcome!
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