Ok. You know you need to have the audience involved, have a great pose with expressive body language and look for an appealing line of action.

Now, how do you pose each element?

A biped character is composed by a head, torso, arms and legs.

And of course, the head has the different elements of the face to express different emotions. The eyes, eyebrows, nose and mouth.

So the best way to achieve a pose, is by taking mini-intuitive-decisions on each area.

It’s a good idea to learn about body language when posing a character, because different hand gestures can mean different things.

You can check the basics by looking for -> body language on wikipedia.

Let’s see a quick and short mini list that you can use to achieve a power pose.

Body Language Quick List

Follow this list and you will have an interesting pose for your character.

Head positions

Torso positions

Arm positions

Leg positions

And for the face, you can just use basic emotions to get things going

Putting it all together

Now, all you have to do is use different combinations of these and you have yourself a pose.

Let’s do a little experiment. We will use a weak character in a strong pose.

First we will choose the combination from our quick list. Decide for a position of the Head, Torso, Arms and Legs.

Then we will sketch out a pose using very simple shapes.

And then, we will add details and clean the lines.

For a full list of the different gestures you can use, just do a quick research on google looking for body anguage gestures

And look for images

You can read a book that talks about body language, or, if you are an animator, maybe you could learn from our course: Body Language in Character Animation with Sydney Poniewaz.

COMPLETE SUMMARY

How do you pose a character to be irresistible to watch? By finding a pose that makes the audience feel involved.

Say something with your character using non-verbal communication (body language)

A pose that expresses a clear emotion, attitude or intention.

Pose your character so good they can’t Ignore it.

People feel involved when they see a character saying something with its pose.

For a good pose, determine attitude and intention.

Use a good line of action, based on your character’s attitude and/or intention (preferably a simple curve).

Learn about the different body gestures and their meaning.

Search for “Body Language Gestures” in google, and look for images.

Use our quick Character Pose List to practice basic poses to get started with your characters.

Posing a Character Challenge

Follow these steps:

  1. Decide an emotion, attitude or intention that you want to express.
  2. Start with a line of action (preferably a simple curve).
  3. Draw a quick sketch of the pose for your character
  4. Optional - Finish your drawing by adding detail.