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Line and Color Quick Start Guide: https://www.thedrawingcodex.com/quickstart

In this video I cover some ideas and thoughts on posing your characters... along with practical advice and exercises.

A big part of posing is Acting... as Artists - drawing our little characters we are part drawer... and part actor... a lot of your success here is in thinking deeply about who you are drawing.

The key is to imagine yourself as the character and imagine yourself being in the pose you need to draw.

Getting in front of a mirror and acting out the pose... or simply trying to get into the position and taking note of what your body does... will help a lot.

You can always improve your structural drawing and ability to draw the mannequin. But giving your characters life is something you can work on no matter how good your drawing is.

My advice for exercises is to give yourself a set number of poses to complete as a set exercise. Think of these 20 (or 10, or 30... whatever works for you) as being thematically linked or perhaps of the same character. This gives you a goal and some form of structure to work towards.

You can do these all in one go... or perhaps just do a few a day. Try not to burn out as when you begin doing this or take on a new posing challenge it will really tax your mind.

The stick figure mannequin is a huge help here as it gives you a simple version of a human figure that you can learn to draw and then repeat... this allows us to focus on the pose rather than the drawing. But you can also add extra form to these little drawings to help define your character.

As I mention in the video... the more you tailor this practice to your own goals the better. If you want to draw fantasy stuff... practicing posing fantasy characters doing fantasy things. etc etc.

Good luck!

With most types of stylised types of art - There is often a mix of structure and perspective and technical drawing.... combined with symbols and abstract features.

Once you get good at blocking in proportion and posing with the Loomis Method you can use it to suit your own style.

It's just a tool you can use to help you draw cool stuff!


Happy Drawing!

Tim Mcburnie

Learn Drawing and Illustration from me: www.thedrawingcodex.com

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