[start image description: Digital drawings of various poses on multiple pages. There is some text on the pages. In the first page the text reads: “Spend a lot of time looking at how people stand. Observe yourself to avoid stiffness, curve the body the body/shift hips and posture of the spine. Arms can break up lines.”
The second page’s text reads: “More focused. More open/relaxed. Very relaxed/sleepy. Foot skids in, tilt for speed. Changes to spacing of leg without changing anything else alters feeling. Consider what you want to convey through posture.“
The third page’s text reads: “Firm pose, weight on this leg. Same pose but body is angled. Less firm, looks cocky. Weight on this leg. Not very bendy (body straight), but angle gives attitude. Angle body plus adjust perspective can make it pop. Focus is on the upper body (especially arms and face).”
The fourth page’s text reads: “Big curves, big movement, big emotion. If something is mostly straight, pop something out so it doesn’t look stiff. Arm pops out, spine and leg. Looks down, can be calm or uncertain. Body droops, pops out. Weight.”
The fifth page has no text, rather there are multiple sitting poses on a page.
The sixth page’s text reads: “Dramatic poses can be derived from dance, sports, fashion poses, et cetera. Leg pops up, push down on this leg. Extend! pops out. Weight still here.”
The seventh page’s text reads: “Position draws attention to certain body parts. You want to guide the eye. Foreshortening can be a curve. Interesting bits: head and hands position (torso is the rigid part due to position).”
The eighth page’s text reads: “Extra examples.” /end image description]
Body poses! Trying to make this was actually kind of difficult. I struggled trying to articulate how I placed people in spaces considering quite a bit of it is intuitive at this point. This guide’s focus is less about anatomy and more about flow and bodies in various positions and amount of motion. Sometimes the most difficult ones are the relaxed ones, mostly because it is subtle and can quickly become stiff. Hopefully this can be of some use. I think another thing that might help with positioning the body is to work on conveying physicality of the person in the image (how the flesh squishes and rests in contact with other things). I also spend time looking at other art as well as other bodies. Looking at bodies (including yourself as a reference) can really be done anywhere in any circumstance. For example, I did 6 yrs of musical theater with 2 of those 6 years doing tap. Staring at other people plus yourself when learning and practicing how to dance increases your awareness of your body position with others. This awareness can be utilized in other things outside of dance, as can be seen with how I place bodies.
