6 Best Figure Drawing Poses for Art Reference for Stunning Character Designs (2024)

Poses for art reference are essential for building your anatomical library and creating unforgettable character designs that resonate with your viewers. In this article, we’ll take a look into the types of art reference poses for character designs that will make your characters stand out and bring them to life. Each pose featured in this article has art reference photos with my personal notes, to help you understand how and why each stance can make your character designs. After all, would you rather draw a character that’s stiff or one that’s dynamic and full of personality?

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Why Are Poses for Art Reference So Important?
Types of Art Reference Photos for Character Designs
6 Essential Poses for Art Reference for Dynamic Character Designs

Why Are Poses for Art Reference So Important?

The right poses for art reference can really make your characters and figure drawings look dynamic, emotional, and breath-taking instead of blocky and stiff. When thinking of poses for art reference, we usually imagine images of figure models posing or art reference photos. Photos for art reference are fantastic because they’re based in reality and great for achieving realism. But some of the most memorable art is when an artist creates gesture in their work with accentuation and exaggeration.

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Gesture and motion sometimes tend to get lost in our art when we always reference from reality. I personally find that artist interpretations of poses for art reference really help me grasp emotion and gesture. They help me bring life into my own drawings and give a sense motion that I sometimes can’t get from art reference photos of figures. Do you learn better from art reference photos or from how an artist interpret people and objects in their own way? I’m hoping that these poses for art reference do the same for you.

If you want to start drawing figures/characters right away, try these super easy and gestural Drawing Ideas of People to help make your drawings look more dynamic and fluid, perfect for all skill levels!

Types of Art Reference Photos for Character Designs

Choosing the right art reference photos are incredibly important. Why? Because you’re using that pic as inspiration and as a guideline. If you have a bad reference photo, you’re art will most likely be that same quality. So, having high standards in what photos for art reference you use will reflect in your art.

1. Photographs of Figure Models

These are just pictures/ photographs of (sometimes nude) figure models posing against plain backgrounds. For examples of what these look like, Line of Action has great professionally lit figure photography.

Pros of using photos for art reference:

Great lighting, dynamic poses, and good description of anatomy
Realistic and based in reality

Cons:

Easy to get lost in detail
Photo quality and lighting may be bad
Hard to accentuate features and exaggerate muscular forms and anatomy
Drawings can end up looking stiff and static (no-movement) very easily

2. Drawings and Sketches by Professional Artists

These types of art reference photos are drawings and sketches of figure models drawn by professional artists and animators, not photography of the models themselves. You might not see dramatic lighting or even a background, just the sketch of the figure model an artist drew.

The image below is an example of using professional drawings and sketches as pose reference for character designs. For more great examples of this, check out Quickposes, a site with many types of drawing photos for art reference.

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Pros of using drawings and sketches by professional artists as art reference photos:

Easy to focus on anatomy, form, and gesture
Won’t get caught up in fine details
Easy to understand exaggerations of forms and anatomical features
Gets your character designs and drawings to look more stylized and unique

Cons:

You could be plagiarizing another artist’s work if you draw the exact same pose and style without giving credit to the artist if you post your art online
Art reference photos may not have realistic lighting or lighting at all
Some artwork photos for art reference may have very little to no anatomical detail or the anatomy may be incorrect
Some drawings and sketches may be hard for you to understand or visually interpret, depending on the artist’s style

Depending on the style you want to draw in, one type of art reference is better than the other. Keep this in mind when creating your characters or drawing people from life.

An important tip to remember is that hair and hair styles are a huge part of showing off the personality of a character or figure. So don’t forget to make it gestural as well. Check out this easy drawing tutorial & 9 Wacky, Unique Hair Bun Styles to make your characters stand out even more!

Now let’s move on to the poses for art reference!

6 Essential Figure Poses for Art Reference for Stunning Character Designs

Now, before we go further, I will say these art reference photos might be a little different than what you might be thinking. These are not photos but pages of my sketchbook where I made stick figure poses from imagination. I didn’t directly use references for these, as I mostly imagined them and pulled some aspects from memory.

Why Stick Figures?

For me, I find it easiest to understand the basics of character design poses without getting caught up in the details, by breaking the human figure down to it’s most basic shapes and forms. When I started drawing characters, I’d get so focused on clothing and making the hair and face look perfect, that the rest of the figure looked very stiff. Does this ever happen to you?

When you’re not distracted by things like anatomy and lighting, it’s much easier to understand body movement and position.

Easier to understand position of appendages and how they move.
Much easier to see the “line of action” – the main line of gesture or movement of a figure that gives an overall impression.
Starting with simple forms is less intimidating and more importantly less time-consuming!

I use circles as joints because those are the main pivot points for action and movement, as seen below with the first pose.

1. 3/4 Beauty Shot or “The Pose”

This is an essential pose for character design because it’s easy to execute while showing a hint of perspective with the left leg slightly bent. Showing just a tiny bit of perspective in your characters shows off your ability to create visual depth and make it more interesting to look at.

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A beauty shot is an image of a figure or object that is between a profile view and a side view, showing slight perspective.

If you were to draw a very good profile or side view of a character, no matter how good it looks, it will never be as interesting to look at vs. a slight 3/4 view. Why? Because there’s much more information to your character in a 3/4 view than just a side view. Also, a slight 3/4 view describes so much more of a character’s form and design giving it 3-dimensions rather than a flat 2D drawing.

2. Shy or “The Slouch”

Like the art reference photos above, this next pose is a more traditional 3/4 view where you can see more of the left side of the body.

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Say you want to draw a shy character and show off that emotion. How would you do it?

Well, shy people are closed off with their body and more huddled, not open. So their arms and legs are closer to their body. Not outstretched like they want to give a hug or say hi to someone.

Create a curved line of action as the main line of movement for the figure. It sets up the pose to be hunched.
Draw the arms close to the body. They don’t have to be angles but the hands should be close or touching the figure’s body. It gives a sense of being closed-off.
The legs shouldn’t have much movement and should also stay relatively close to the center of the pelvis.
You can bend the legs to further accentuate the figure’s hunch.
Keep head close to shoulders – shows mystery, trying to hide, or lack of confidence.

3. Sad

You can’t have emotional poses for character designs if you don’t show a bit of vulnerability.

When drawing sad characters or figures, again make your figure closed off and contained.

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Unlike the shy art reference photos, the one above is more exaggerated.

When drawing a sad character, here are a few points to note:

Character’s head is either looking down and/or resting on something.
Overall pose is in a downward direction.
Back is not straight and upright but hunched or curved.

4. Back Pose at Low Angle

One of the next poses for art reference is drawing a character at a low angle. This means our view is low to the ground and we’re looking up at the figure.

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This is a great type of art reference pose because it’s very dynamic. Even though the character itself isn’t very gestural, the perspective appears to give the figure movement, volume, and dimension.

Main points when drawing these types of art reference poses:

Draw a 3D box where you can see the bottom.
Draw your character inside the box while following the box’s sides of when they converge and when they diverge to really push the perspective.
Make sure you see the undersides of your figure or bottom edges, like the bottom edge of a head or pelvis like in the purple

5. High Angle Pose

Here are some photos for art reference showing a character pose from a high angle.

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High angle poses have the same effect as low angle ones in that they’re very dynamic to look at. They’re usually used to show a character in a voyeuristic or semi-creepy angle or even to make the character look smaller or appear less important. Like something foreboding will happen. So if you’re drawing a villainous vampire, an evil ruler of the skies who commands soul-sucking dragons, or a witch who uses devouring enchantments and herbs to create hungry teenagers bent on rampaging through school cafeterias, then these are the perfect poses for character designs in similar categories.

High angle poses are also fantastic for showing characters or figures that are less important. Like dwarves, a beefed-up meat head who occasionally talks to the main charcter, or any secondary or sub-character.
Draw a box in perspective, then your figure inside, making sure it converges downward. Hint: it’ll really help sell this point of view!
When done right, you should see (or pay attention to) the top sides of your figure (colored in purple below).

The pose above is something simple to get you started. If you’re not used to drawing characters from high or low angles, a simple straight pose with the figure’s hands on their sides is a great place to start. Don’t try to make it too complicated, though, esp. if this isn’t something you’re used to drawing.

6. Foreshortening – “Flying Hero Pose”

The last of these essential poses for character designs is foreshortening.

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Foreshortening is when a part of an object or figure appears closer to us than the rest of the object due to our viewpoint in perspective. Basically, the closer something is to us, the larger it looks. And the further something is, the smaller it appears. For example, if you hold your hand right up to your face, it looks large but when you extend your arm and hand in front of you, it looks smaller. It’s the same when drawing objects and figures.

There are many different types of art reference poses showing foreshortening from all sorts of angles.

Good foreshortening photos for art reference have figures posed where you can’t see their full body, only from certain angles where parts of their body are obscured or when you can only see 1 angle or side of their face.
Try taking your own art reference photos with a friend using your phone camera by placing an arm or hand in front of you.

The art reference photos above show a “flying hero” pose.

Draw a box in perspective that goes to a vanishing point.
One hand or limb is closer to us, so it looks bigger than other areas – Draw it bigger!
The line of action is shaped like a ‘swoosh’, like a trail of wind to give a weightless feel.
Pose is diagonal but can be horizontal when you want to show a character’s speed when flying or in full-flight.

Now you’re ready to create some stunning character and figure drawings using these awesome poses! With the right kinds of art reference photos, you can create unique figures and characters while standing out from the crowd.