INTRODUCTION

In this tutorial I will be teaching you how to draw dynamic poses in THREE different levels: Beginner, Intermediate and Advance

 

🔷 BEGINNER LEVEL 🔷

As a beginner, one tends to draw poses that seem too static which can appear very boring and inexpressive. There are 3 ways you can elevate these said poses.

 

BREAK THE SYMMETRY

One thing a beginner can do to improve the poses is by breaking the symmetry. Observe the image below, notice how breaking a symmetry makes a poses seems a bit more interesting and well bit more dynamic

 

AVOID FRONT-FACING AND SIDE-FACING

I know front-facing and side-facing shots can be dynamic too but this is only relevant if you know what you are doing. When first starting out, a good rule of thumb is to avoid these two-angle shots.

 

With this in mind, you can apply this tip to the pose from before. Observe how it improves the energy of the pose.

EXAGGERATION OF SHOULDERS AND HIP LINES

Another thing that one can do to improve the overall energy of the pose is by exaggerating the line on the shoulders and hips.

 

By doing this, it makes a character seem more confident or elegant. This is good for characters who are more outgoing, friendly and extroverted. Now apply this to the pose from before. Observe how the energy is slight more different now

 

Here are some other good and easy poses demonstrating the tips mentioned above:

 

🟠 INTERMEDIATE LEVEL 🟠

Now that you get the hang of the beginner level tips, and want to improve your poses more, it is time to upgrade your skill to intermediate level.

 

DO NOT RELY ON GEOMETRIC SHAPES

I know there are a lot of drawing tips about using geometric shapes such as cubes, cylinders, pyramids and spheres to draw the foundation of a character drawing.

 

It is not wrong to use geometric shapes to guide you in terms of getting the correct anatomy. However, this is also the cause of stiffness in your character poses.

 

Dynamic poses are poses that present a powerful organic energy, emphasis in the organic part.

 

These kinds of poses do not just exist to be pretty, it exists to tell a story. By limiting yourself by not letting loose of your lines, will just restrict the freedom of the flow of energy.

 

Then how should we approach this? There are people who said to use the oval shape to draw your character since it creates more roundness. But drawing oval does not feel right either as it lacks of edges too.

 

This is just a tip but for me personal, I came to find that using a triangular teardrop-shape is the most effective way to draw dynamic poses while still keeping both of the energy and convincing anatomy in place.

 

Here is a demonstration of how I apply this teardrop-shape drawing technique:

 

Look how different it looks comparing a geometric figure and a figure drawn using the teardrop-shaped technique.

 

With this in mind, let’s redraw the poses from before, shall we?

 

Other than that, applying this do give your poses a bit more of an elegant flow comparing to the geometric one.

 

LINE OF ACTION

This is probably something you heard a lot from many artists. It is a hot topic for a good reason.

 

Line of actions is basically an imaginary line that helps one to create a more dramatic or consistent pose. Line of action also helps in giving your character more life and guides you through on how the energy flows through your character’s poses.

 

These lines of actions are usually “C” or “S” curves. It helps to define directions of actions. Sometimes but not all the time, the spine of the characters do follow through the middle of the line of action.

 

Here are some application of line of actions:

 

Slight C-Curve

Broad C-Curve

 

C-curve

S-curve

 

Now that you know about line of actions, you may come into a problem that even with the line of action, you still feel your poses are quite stiff or lack expression.

 

One thing you can do is again, exaggeration. Similar to how we did with the shoulders and hips line during beginner level, exaggerate your line of action.

 

🟩 ADVANCE LEVEL 🟩

Okay, you got your basics down, learned more tricks by sprinkling some spice on your pose drawing skills, and you are now ready to level up.

 

In the previous sections, we are only talking about the poses and how to make it seem more organic, and natural by keeping its flow. Is there any other way to make it more dynamic?

 

There is, and this time we have to bring in the most important part of capturing a dynamic pose, we need a dynamic camera too.

 

In this section, we will go step by step in understanding how to apply a dynamic camera.

 

FORESHORTENING

Before we dive into how to make your “camera” dynamic, it’s good to know how foreshortening works first.

 

Foreshortening is a technique that enables us to portray an object or a human body in a picture with depth. It creates this illusion of space around the character.

 

Below shows a visual example of a foreshortening of an arm.

 

With this in mind, now apply the technique in combination of the teardrop-shaped technique that is mentioned in the intermediate section.

 

PERSPECTIVE

To draw characters in a convincing 3D space, we need to understand perspective. However, we would not be going through how to draw a character in perspective in this tutorial as this deserves a whole new topic on its own.

 

So instead, we will be using CSP’s 3D models in helping us to visualize how this actually works.

 

Drag and drop the 3D model into your canvas.

 

Go to Operation Tool, under its Tool Property, we will paying attention to two things:

• Perspective

• Manga Perspective

 

PERSPECTIVE SETTING

 

By playing around the value of the perspective setting, observe how the pose changes. And you straight away tell how it becomes more dynamic compared to the first one.

 

MANGA PERSPECTIVE SETTING

 

I believe this setting is to help artists to establish a more convincing manga-panel-worthy anatomy of the model when viewed from a certain angle. Observe how the head, hand, and arm are slightly enlarged.

 

CAMERA PLACEMENT

Different camera angles do aid in giving different kinds of vibe to your character poses. Do play around with it when using the 3D model to capture the angle desired.

 

Here are three examples utilizing different camera angles:

 

Bottom:

Top:

Side-bottom:

 

💡ADDITIONAL TIPS 💡

These are some tips that can be useful when drawing dynamic poses!

 

CLEAR SILHOUETTE

Clear silhouette makes the poses more convincing and is able to convey more clearly what the action is doing.

 

LIQUIFY TOOL

Let’s say you dislike to use the 3D Model as it does make your poses look stiff when tracing over it, but your proportions do not look right.

 

You can use the liquify tool to exaggerate certain parts of the body and manipulate them to your desired results. You can expand, shrink, move and many more with the liquify tool.

 

DYNAMIC FRAME

This again goes back to the section about Dynamic Camera. Another good tip is to rotate your frames, so that the flow of energy portrays more clearly.

 

Observe how a rotation of the camera gives more movement to the pose.

 

USE EXTERNAL THINGS TO COMPLEMENT YOUR POSES

Dynamic poses are all about movement, why not try to enhance it more? You can do this by using something else to improve the current poses.

 

Below examples show using the movement of the character’s hair to provide more movement in the poses.

 

 

 

Other than using the movement of hair, you can also use objects in enhancing the poses:

CONCLUSION

That is all of my tutorial on creating dynamic poses, hope it helps some of you in getting new insights on how to make your poses more dynamic! Happy drawing!