Posing. Turns out it is way harder then I thought.

I've been working on a character sheet for a portfolio class. It is essentially a knight but of my own design. I am working on details and the elbow functionality is a pain along with the knees and feat. Finding reference is tricky too because when you google Knight armor nobody is thinking about how the knee is connected to the thigh.

Photos are from my phone so sorry if its poor quality. This is a pose I just turned in to my teacher and I was feeling really good about it. Turns out it has a lot of problems. The good news is this taught me a lot about how creating poses works.

Its hard to read the notes on the page but what I found after my teacher told me this photo was "off" was that his body is arguing with itself. I hadn't locked down what I wanted him to be doing so as I drew the pose I was just making things up. Now half of him looks like he is raising his hammer in triumph while his legs appear as if he is jumping.

Lesson one. Use reference for the exact motion you are trying to achieve especially if its a dynamic pose and you don't have a good library of poses built up in your noggin.

Now silly as I may look, this is more natural. It may not have the proper weight in every place but it gives a good hint of what my drawing should look like.

I drew these based on this.

Rougher but its more natural and you get the idea about the motion and force that I am trying to suggest.

I showed this too to my Pixar teacher and he said "What kind of dance is that?"

I had the tork right but his upper body was still straight up and with his leg so high up he appeared to be graceful and dancing.

Since I feel like I am getting close to the pose (and I'm tired of redrawing it) I am switching to photoshop.