Figure Drawing References #1

Hello again! As the budding school year dawns (I'm on the quarter system....yeah, it's weird) I thought I'd create a rather helpful blog for any and all things people drawing.

I've been working lately on really beefing up my chops

(get it? beef, chops.................*sigh* bunch of vegetarians)

Anyway, I've been striving to get better at figure drawing and in doing so researched a myriad of sites for reference. Instead of hoarding this information for myself (precious) I thought I'd share it with you!

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So, first off you've got the most fantastic sites that neatly organize and categorize different gender, groups, poses, for your convenience which reallllly comes in handy when looking for a specific pose at a specific angle.

I found a plethora of these on Deviant Art specifically:

#dAPoses (probably the best and most comprehensive I've found)
#SenshiStock (also highly recommended)

There are also some with one or only a few models who are mostly women:

*ImperialStarletStock
*LaLunatique
^PirateLotus-Stock
...
...........
.....................(there's a ton of these and you can spend hours looking through all of them, with new ones sprouting up all the time, so just take my advice and search on your own--it's good stuff)

Also, one very comprehensive collection featuring the manliest of men:

#ManStock

Moving on, we have a few other sites who also categorize.


Posemaniacs is a very helpful site containing 3D representations of models showing off the way muscles work from pose to pose. Like the others there are a variety of poses for both male and female from many angles. The site also contains a timed random pose generator giving you a set limit to capture each pose just like a life drawing session. Another useful tool on the site is called "Hands for Drawing." This tool contains a variety of hand poses, as well as a foot and a head, all within a 3D space for you to maneuver to any angle.

Sketch-up is a fantastic free program by Google used for rudimentary 3D modeling BUT it's also great for referencing and you don't have to be a modeler to use it! Download the program and go HERE where you'll find a plethora of environments, objects and figures to download and use in Sketch-up. In the program you can view these reference models from any angle and even modify the camera to adjust focal depth for more interesting perspectives. Not for the feint of heart but a very useful tool, nonetheless.

reference! reference! is also very hand-specifically for animators. This site not only contains categorized models for varying shapes, sizes, and species; all of them are MOVING! The site holds a plethora of brief video clips with men, women, and animals doing a variety of gestures and motions. It is a fantastic tool for really studying movement and great reference.

Since I was trying to practice a myriad of poses and angles I also found a few good sites for a more randomized approach.

Pixelovely is a site devoted to the life drawing experience with a highly customizable random pose generator. The only downside to this site is the slightly limited variety i.e. many are women and if you do it many times you will see the same images repeat back. Still a great resource.

Tumblr is also a good resource for images though not nearly as well put together as the others. The trick is to serach through the tags like #poses or #figure drawing and then clicking on the archive section so that you can see large galleries of images all at once. (ex: #figure drawing references, #life drawing reference for animators)

Another good trick is to go on stock image sites. It takes a little more digging but a reference is a reference.

That's all for now but as you may have guessed from the title I don't plan on this being the only one of these posts as I am constantly discovering more resources to add-so, stay tuned!