Original subtitles

In this lecture we're going to be talking about action poses.

So we talked about the line of action which is the first part of drawing a dynamic and action type pose.

But in this lecture we're going to talk about what specifically makes oppose an action posed.

So when we're drawing people and we want them to look balanced we talked about how we have to draw that

line down from the center of their chest down to their feet.

And if that line kind of lands between either two of the feet or right through one of the feet then

that means that they're balanced and typically a balanced pose is balance because the person can hold

that pose.

So somebody for example that's standing there with their feet spread apart evenly.

People can do that for a long time you can take a picture of that or you can sit there and study them

and draw them.

But when you're doing an action pose that's something where you're in the middle of an action and you

usually can't stop.

So let's talk about the few different things that kind of separate an action pose from a static balanced

pose.

So right here you can see that we have a photograph of this young man.

He looks like he's jumping in the air is about to kick or something like that.

But you can tell that he's in action.

So even if you didn't have all this background behind him he didn't know he wasn't touching the ground

you would know that he wasn't touching the ground because of the way his feet are.

So first of all we can tell that he is not touching the ground because he's kind of at a point.

And typically we don't just stand on our toes like that especially just one toe.

So we automatically kind of know that this toe is not touching the ground and might just barely be on

it and might be a little bit above it but there's not really any weight on that foot.

So we know that he's in the air.

The only way to be in the air is if you're jumping.

We also know that he's kind of in the middle of his jump because his other foot is higher than this.

So anytime we bring one of the feet up higher than the other one it really kind of just gives that impression

that somebody is in the middle of an action they're taking a step they're jumping they're kicking something

like that.

So having that difference in height for the feet is going to help us with that looking like an action

pose.

All right let's go ahead and let's look at another photograph so you can see here.

Here's one more example of somebody lifting their foot up.

You can see that we have foreshortened going on here because this foot is closer to the viewer so it's

a little bit larger and the leg kind of gets larger as it moves out forward toward you.

And this one as it gets further back the calf and stuff actually gets smaller and the foot gets smaller

as it moves away.

But another thing is that even when you take perspective into account.

So if we kind of draw a perspective line like this going off to his footprints you can see that the

line goes out to this front foot that's touching the ground.

But this one back here is above that line.

So we know that that foot is off the ground even if we don't visualize that perspective line going off

to a vanishing point.

Our brain picks it up it can tell that the foot is off the ground.

And so we know well this person must be in action.

They're not they're not just holding one foot up.

Usually if somebody is holding one foot up that's a really hard post to hold.

And so having that one foot up and one foot on the ground or both feet off the ground either way having

one higher than the other really helps you create that action pose.

All right.

Now let's talk about leaning into something.

So this is an example of a bad action pose.

So I know this is a photograph but if you were to be trying to draw somebody punching and it looks like

this look really bad it wouldn't look real.

And the reason why is because this girl's not leaning into it.

It's not just because of this guy's bad looking punched face but but it's because she's not leaning

into it.

If you actually look at it you can see that her body is actually angled backwards.

So everything about this looks fake it doesn't look like she's actually punching him.

What we could do is if we were to just kind of draw redraw this

like this and we had her body further back maybe his her arm was more stretched out and her body was

leaning into it maybe not that much it would look a lot more convincing.

So let's look at an example where somebody is leaning into a punch and look at the difference she can

see that this girl her body is angled if we look at her back or her line of action her body is angled

forwards.

So that's what's making this punch look a lot more real.

Obviously there's other things too like her hair flying up in the air stuff like that.

But if we were to take her hair away we could still tell that she was really leaning into something

and making action happen because of the way she's leaning into it.

So when we draw that arm that's punching in to this guy's hand it looks a lot more real because her

body is lean forward into that action.

So leaning forward is a really important part of creating action not every action pose it is going to

call for you leaning into your pose.

But a lot of the times it will.

So this is something to keep in mind.

Now most time when you're drawing action poses you're probably going to be looking at reference.

So typically you just have to kind of copy what you see.

But I just want to go over these key points of action poses so that you can kind of check your poses

for these things.

So if you want something to look like they're punching into somebody or running into something you wanna

make sure that they're leaning into that thing that they're doing.

All right.

Let's have a look at one last example.

So right here we have a man that's running and this is our third example which would be falling or imbalanced.

So if we went ahead and we drew that line coming down from the pit of his chest you can see that both

his legs are on this side of his center of gravity.

And so that means that he's imbalanced you can't ever have this.

So if this guy's leg was like this and I was touching the ground well then he would be balanced but

because it's not there both on the same side of this center of gravity that means that he is imbalanced

and he's going to fall forward.

So if you didn't know that he was running or was going to catch himself you would think that he would

just fall forward right on his face.

But because we understand what running and walking is we know that as soon as he starts to fall forward

too far this leg is going to come forward and it's going to catch himself.

And so anyways basically having this imbalance is what's creating that action in the pose is the fact

that he looks like he's about to fall over.

Now even if he was going to fall over and not catch himself that would still be an action pose.

You'd be right in the middle of falling and creating some action.

So having this imbalance in your pose is going to help greatly in creating oppose it looks like somebody

is in action.

All right.

So what we're going to do now is let's go ahead.

Let's draw a few gesture drawings and we can kind of practice this a little bit.

So let's start off by drawing one where somebody is kind of not on both their feet so maybe they have

one toe on the ground or something like that.

We're going to kind of make it look like they're jumping.

So I want to go ahead and just kind of start by sketching out kind of a torso like this do a ball for

the waist.

Then there's the pelvis and then I'll just kind of have the arms come off kind of like this

one will come off like this.

So this is gonna be from the back.

This might look kind of weird because maybe you didn't realize that we're kind of viewing this person

from the back but this is gonna be from the back.

It's kind of like that we can draw their head in kind of like looking up like this or something

and then what we'll do is for this leg I'm just going to kind of draw down like that.

Then just kind of sketch something like that for the foot.

So they're just kind of standing on their tippy toe on that leg and then for the other one.

Let's go ahead and just kind of draw the leg out like this.

So this leg will be way more up and off the ground do a little bit of for shortening in there so as

calf will be foreshortened because it's kind of angling towards our viewer a little bit

more like that maybe it'll actually bring that on a little bit more and it looks kind of bad.

Woops No my racer size so redraw this kind of bring it in a little bit more.

All right so maybe something like that and obviously this is just kind of a gesture drawn so we'd really

have to work on it a little bit more to make it look really good but just kind of a simple one of somebody

jumping up kind of viewing them from the backside.

All right.

So next let's go ahead and let's try another one.

So for this one let's do one where somebody is punching.

So let's kind of make them punch.

We're kind of punching downwards kind of a downwards punch so we can start with a line of action I'll

do a line of action for his arm and then I'm also going to do a line of action for his body.

So for his body I'll just kind of do something like this

so there's a head

here's kind of the arm

the other arm kind of pull back like this there's that fist.

So it's almost like you just punch somebody

that leg and then his leg would kind of come back like this is calf and then we see his foot.

So that's some very extreme foreshortened and you can see that the calf right there is you almost can't

even see it.

Because of the way it's angled backwards and for the other leg you'll kind of see that this leg will

be in the same pose but you'll see it from a different angle.

So I should make a little bit more sense to you.

Just kind of doing that.

We're seeing this from more of a side angle

those legs probably a little bit bigger but that's a pretty decent gesture.

So you can see that this is an example of somebody leaning into something.

So it looks a little bit more real it looks a little bit more like he's actually punched or something

like that because he's leaning forward

right now let's have a look at one more example so let's do one of somebody that's running so well doing

where somebody is running they'll kind of be very angled to the side like this.

So this is an example actually where you can kind of have a straight line of action maybe could curve

it a little bit more but pretty straight.

But we angle it so it's not just straight up and down because that's really boring.

And so from here let's just go ahead and draw ahead

sketch out a torso pelvis

All right.

So there's the other thigh but they're going to be running.

So this leg is going to kind of kick back up like that and you kind of see their other foot back there

I mean go ahead and draw the arms in probably one arm will go right there can come back up towards his

face like that and the other one

coming off his body like this

right.

So this looks like they're running not just because one leg is lifted up off the ground but also because

of his center of gravity so if you drop that line coming straight down you'll see that both his feet

are on this side of that line and so that means that he's going to fall over this way basically.

But if he's running he has his momentum has all that stuff that's going to keep him from falling.

But that's what's making him look like he's in action is the fact that he looks like he could fall over

at any minute he is falling and this pose basically.

And so that's creating that action.

All right.

That brings us to the end of this lecture.

If you have any questions about how to draw your characters in an action pose.

Go ahead and post them to the Q and A section of the course so I can answer them.

Thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next lecture.