So, about this “pose family” I’ve been working on. It wasn’t like I woke up one day with a perfectly clear vision. Nope. It was more like one of those things that just starts small, you tinker a bit, and then suddenly you realize you’ve got a whole bunch of ’em.
At first, I was just trying to get some basic shapes, you know? Like, how does a person look when they’re leaning this way or that? I started with some quick sketches. My desk looked like a bird had nested in a pile of discarded drawings. Then I thought, “Hey, maybe there’s an app for this.” Tried a couple, some were okay, some were just confusing. Didn’t quite get the feel I wanted.
Getting Hands-On
Then I remembered those little wooden mannequins artists use. Picked one up. That was a bit better for general shapes. But I wanted more… personality, I guess? So, I started thinking about making my own simple figures. Nothing fancy. Just enough to show different stances. I even fiddled with some soft wire for a bit, trying to bend it into human-like forms. Talk about trial and error! Some looked more like confused stick insects than people.
The real turning point was when I decided to just focus on a few key poses I saw people doing all the time. Like, someone waiting, someone looking at their phone, someone pointing. I’d grab some cheap clay, or even just quickly sketch them out again, but this time with a bit more intention. I wasn’t aiming for masterpieces, just clear silhouettes.
And that’s how the “family” started to grow. One pose would lead to an idea for another. “What if this one was interacting with that one?” I’d think. So, I’d try to set them up together. It became a bit of a game. I wasn’t using any high-tech software or anything. Mostly just my hands, some basic materials, and a lot of looking around, observing people.
- Observation was key. Just watching folks at the coffee shop, in the park, even characters in movies.
- Keeping it simple. Didn’t get bogged down in tiny details. The overall posture was what mattered.
- Iterating. If a pose didn’t look right, I’d just squish the clay and start over, or grab a new piece of paper. No big deal.
You might be wondering why I even bothered with all this. Well, it actually started a while back. I was working on a small personal project, trying to storyboard a little animation idea I had. Just for fun, you know? And I kept getting stuck on making the characters look natural. My drawings were stiff. So, this whole “pose family” thing was my way of trying to understand body language better, to make things feel more alive without getting all technical about anatomy.
It was also surprisingly relaxing. After a long day, just fiddling with these little figures or sketching out a new pose became a nice way to unwind. No pressure, just playing around. My kid even got involved at one point, started making their own weird and wonderful creatures to join the “family.” That was a laugh.
So now I’ve got this collection. Some are tiny clay figures, some are just a series of quick sketches pinned to a board. They’re not perfect, far from it. But they’re my “pose family.” Each one reminds me of that little journey of figuring things out. And honestly, it’s helped a ton. When I need to visualize a character now, I often just glance over at them, or quickly try to mimic one of their stances myself. It’s funny how something so simple can end up being so useful. And it all started with just messing around, really.
