My goal for 2024: getting better at drawing poses

[mysterionz]

Any tips? For now I’m using references and trying to block out the construction shapes used. Any other tips?

 

[Crossbreed]

Any other tips?

Get some dollies. (Make sure they are reasonably articulated.)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/studio_126/with/52697404071

 

[Slime_Punk]

Do you use Clip Studio? They've got a great pose tool for 3D models

 

[Crossbreed]

Do you use Clip Studio? They've got a great pose tool for 3D models

There was a 3D figure program called Poser, but it and all of its add-ons were very expensive. I learned about it when I had a Windows XP machine. When support for XP was discontinued, none of my very good (and expensive-to-replace) programs ported to Win 8. (I think that it was due to the former being a 32-bit machine and the latter, 64-bit.) Even my peripherals were not compatible...!

Boy, am I glad that I did not buy all of the Poser products I was interested in.

 

[Misery]

I have another software suggestion as well, which is Design Doll, and can be found here:

https://terawell.net/en/
I dont know how it is for you, but for me, I learn best through mimicry, and with art that means reference images. This bit of software here has been super easy to use and very helpful, and it's what I use in practicing. And also, sometimes when I'm trying to draw something I'll be going along just fine without any help, and then I get to one particular part and I just cant quite freaking do it, so then all I gotta do is recreate what I've drawn in this program, and then I can look at the full pose as it should be and be like "okay, these angles for the legs need to be kinda like THIS, alright, I think I get it". And then I can continue from there.

A lot of my focus recently has been in learning to draw proper proportions for characters so that nobody ends up looking like Slenderman or something, so this has been good for that. But the app is mainly about character poses and setups.

I've found it to be quite easy to use.

Really there's a million digital tools and such out there that can help you get to where you want to be.

 

[Slime_Punk]

There was a 3D figure program called Poser, but it and all of its add-ons were very expensive. I learned about it when I had a Windows XP machine. When support for XP was discontinued, none of my very good (and expensive-to-replace) programs ported to Win 8. (I think that it was due to the former being a 32-bit machine and the latter, 64-bit.) Even my peripherals were not compatible...!

Boy, am I glad that I did not buy all of the Poser products I was interested in.

Have you tried running any of these in VirtualBox by any chance? There's also another extremely accurate emulator that I've recommended to others on here (I keep forgetting its name, but I will update this when I find it again!) that will supposedly run things like this flawlessly if VBox can't for some reason.

Also, if you're not against revisiting any of the others despite being potentially outdated, Archive.org might even have them archived. In my experience, older software can really be quite a gem sometimes!

 

[DaisyRose]

I like to look at Pinterest and find ideas I like to draw. I still have a hard time drawing hands. I’ve always struggled with hands. They can be hard to do. I can’t wait to see your progress with your art. I hope you will share your art with us soon!

 

[Rodafina]

Have you gone old school with it, @mysterionz?

 

[mysterionz]

Do you use Clip Studio? They've got a great pose tool for 3D models

I’ve tried clip studio, but it’s too hard to navigate for me. Plus, their subscription model is kinda questionable in my opinion. I can download it to my iPad, but you need an account + a subscription to actually save your work which is sad.

 

[Mr. Stevens]

Have you gone old school with it, @mysterionz?

I used to have one of these. They were cool.

I would say life models are useful. I wonder if a nearby college would let you sit in for free. Nothing beats practice and the real thing.

For books, Burne Hogarth has some old books on anatomy which are thorough. They can be elaborate and technical, though. I don't know if that's helpful.

 

[Crossbreed]

Have you tried running any of these in VirtualBox by any chance?

My AutoCAD LT97 has security features that limit the types of machines that you can put them on (though I have found workarounds between two 32-bit machines).

Have you gone old school with it, @mysterionz?

Besides my Playscale Players, I started off with these.
I have two males & two females,

• Oscar & Emmy,
• Woody & Ashley

 

[Judge]

There was a 3D figure program called Poser, but it and all of its add-ons were very expensive. I learned about it when I had a Windows XP machine. When support for XP was discontinued, none of my very good (and expensive-to-replace) programs ported to Win 8. (I think that it was due to the former being a 32-bit machine and the latter, 64-bit.) Even my peripherals were not compatible...!

Boy, am I glad that I did not buy all of the Poser products I was interested in.

I too thought of Meta Creations' Poser 3 for a moment. But it's an ancient 16-bit program I haven't been able to use since Windows 98SE. Much like their landscaping product called "Bryce 3D".

A version just too old, yet I suspect you can simply "turn off" those construction shapes the OP spoke of in later versions.

But that said, there are a number of such sophisticated programs out there, though I also suspect that as 3D applications, they require a more robust multi-threading cpu and graphics card.

Otherwise many 3D apps are likely to crawl, like using "Blender". But then as freeware, you can download such a program just to see how well- or not it runs on your computer. Probably a good benchmark to determine whether running a human figure equivalent app would run on your system.

Then again, "Blender" also allows for rendering human figures. Not sure though just how sophisticated they may prove to be, but again, this app is freeware.

https://www.blender.org/download/

 

[mysterionz]

Then again, "Blender" also allows for rendering human figures. Not sure though just how sophisticated they may prove to be, but again, this app is freeware

I watch this YouTuber make fanmade South Park animations in Blender. He has an ongoing series called “South Park for kids”.

 

[Judge]

An intriguing thought. With the latest iPads with Apple's M3 processors, I wonder if they could run Blender ?