Silhouette Practice (With some Shading)

[Rosier]

I've been trying to work more on posing, especially stuff more dynamic stuff than the casual slouch I usually do.  So, silhouette practice. 

Aside from just poses, I'm also trying for stuff like concept art or a splash screen, with the intention of kind of giving an impression of the character's personalities.

[Gil]

I think you should exaggerate more, this is still too much in your comfort zone. Go for some spine breaking ultra dynamic action.

[Rosier]

I think you should exaggerate more, this is still too much in your comfort zone. Go for some spine breaking ultra dynamic action.

I can understand exaggeration in animations, but impossible body positions should be left to Jojo.

I assume you mean like more physical action stills like mid run or jump?

[Gil]

I can see how you wouldn't like impossible comic poses, even though I think it'd be good practice. Here's some real poses then, they are still far more dynamic than yours, so I'm sure you can still push it all a little more:

Spoiler

[Conzeit]

man, like I've said several times go for gesture drawing.


OMG someone flagged the video as mature -.- that is impossibly lame

think of them more as body parts making geometric shapes than geometric shapes that make bodyparts, that will get you better poses

[Rosier]

Doesn't fully communicate holding a gun without the lines, but I legitimately tried different arm variations for like half an hour. 

Also I feel like I shouldn't be using straight lines much or at all, but it looked... stronger with the straight leg.

[Cyangmou]

your art still suffers from too short legs. it looks really unelegant if the head + torso together are longer than the legs if you have nicely detailled characters (with feet, real hands etc. that they give a feel of believability.) With real chibis, which consist just out of the head and have all other body forms stylized heavily it looks ok.

Posing characters is storytelling!

You don't use striking action lines. hat S-rhythm with the forward bend legs and backwards bend upper spine makes your figures look hesitant. If you use that for an armed character it tells a story like "hey I am weak and afraid, please don't harm me" which is absolutely ok if you go for such a character, but generally I suppose you want a bit of heroism.

For that consider the mass center of the body. Usually you want to avoid strict standing poses, unless it's cool posing and you also want to avoid extreme dynamical action poses (unless you are doing the keyframes for an animation) - this means you are left with the "about to" pose.

The about to pose is the pose where the character shortly hands a pose before he goes into action. It usually communicates tension and it's easy to tell what movement will follow next.

On another note I'd try to implement some foreshortening to give away a better feel of volume and space.

Made you an edit for your 3rd pose:



in an animation your pose could be displayed shortly before my pose (where the hero crouches and then he takes the step before an attack) - my pose is just more expressive in terms which will happen next becasue it only works in 1 way. Yours works in 2 ways, since we don't know if the hero is falling back or taking that step of my pose.

[Friend]

not to take away from other crits, but i like your poses.  and i like your proportions. You have room to grow in depicting your underlying anatomical structures to make your characters more believable and less of a "drawing". But you  don't need "elegant" legs or to conform to such artistic directions.  You do you.

  i prefer you pose to cyangmou's edit.  instead of making the poses more dynamic, you can also change character design that emphasizes your poses without having to make them needlessly dramatic.  Remember the pose is not the end all be all.  it is just the means through which your characters come to life.  they can be as zany or off the wall, unique or convential or as restrained or lacking dynamism as you want them to express what your artistic side desires. 

In focusing on what you want to improve, remember you're creating a character

[Rosier]

I wound up accidentaling Terry Bogard's Buster Wolf super before realizing that the pose I was going for was just Terry Bogard's Buster Wolf super.  Looked at it a bit for reference after realizing, but maybe a bit too much.  Exaggerated the roundness of it a bit more, though.

[Conzeit]

for what it's worth I think this pose is better =). if you were going for capturing dynamic active looking poses you did it.

Try to not think of them as what someone else did, or what they'll remind people of, just think of them in function of what you're drawing and how much it works there, everyone is copying everyone else subconsciously so dont sweat it, just do your best