Resource Weds: Tigress pose

Today is going to be crit day! Before I begin on everyone's crit requests I'm going to share some work I did helping out a friend with posing. He says he struggles with them. I'm uploading this with his express permission.

Now, I don't think there's much 'wrong' with his pose, per se. It's a perfectly nice drawing. But because he wanted to anchor his characters in a 3D space more, I gave him some pointers on how to think about the figure as architecture. 

People (or in this case cartoon tigresses) are really just objects that occupy a space and follow the same rules as any other object. They follow the same lines of perspective as a building would. To show him how that might work I suggested he imagine the figure in an invisible box, with the bottom plane on the ground and the top plane as a kind of 'invisible ground' higher on the horizon. 

For the character to be balanced (look like they are not going to fall over) their weight line needs to be perpendicular to the ground. This, basically, is a superimposition of the invisible lines gravity makes moving toward the center of the earth. Line up that weight with the line of gravity and, bam, you are standing upright. 

Not all poses NEED this, of course. When the body is moving the rules change. Also there is a certain amount of muscular control that allows a body to *appear* as though it's falling when the strength of the straining muscles are holding it up. For receipts see those amazing photos of world-class gymnasts holding themselves perpendicular to a pole. It is, literally, gravity defying via the steel-like strength of their muscles. 

If your character is NOT a superpowered gymnast, however, or if they are relaxed, they need to agree with that gravity line or they're going to faceplant. 

The second thing I mentioned is that human beings rarely stand completely straight and symmetrical. When in rest, people (and a lot of animals, especially horses) tend to shift their weight from leg to leg. When the line of the hips is not parallel to the line of the ground and the shoulders are shifted in the other direction, this is called contrapposto, meaning 'counterpose'. The body is still in balance but looks natural and articulated instead of stiff. The green lines show where the body is not parallel to the ground, but I included some blue lines to show that there are still points on the body which are. 

Again, not every single standing pose you draw NEEDS to be contrapposto. It is a relaxed stance, and sometimes you just need to stand like a superhero. It's all a part of the subtle, non-verbal language people speak. It is also important to work in parts of your body architecture that are not necessarily parallel with the invisible box, so it isn't really stiff. It could be a relaxed leg, a reaching hand, a twisted torso, or all of the above. 

Lastly it's just a matter of keeping in mind that a body is a physical thing occupying space. If any part of the original drawing were especially problematic, I'd say it was the tail. The way the bottom curve is inches in front of the figure and yet the markings do not show it curving forward in space makes it appear as though it is detached and hovering. So I moved the tail conspicuously back behind the body, following the lines of perspective to really anchor it in space. 

This drawing is not perfect. I did it as an example in perhaps two minute's time. The change in the turn and tilt of the head, as well as keeping with Tigress's movie design, were just spur-of-the-moment decisions and weren't comments on his pose. 

I also suggested that to stress his perspective brain he should take a tiled chess board and use the distort tool to tilt it in ten different ways as  ground plane and then to draw a character balanced on that plane. 

Sadly I have a ton of winterfest art to do for Khimeros so I won't be able to join him in this right away (and I have a prior obligation to someone else involving art study) but I hope to partake as well, and I'll upload a little mini tutorial, or perhaps just files of ground planes for everyone to experiment with.

Also, if you $10 and up people don't mind, I'd like to just share this one right away with everybody as a freebie.