How do you come up with good poses?

I myself have fairly strong visualization skills, however I still struggle to draw poses straight from my mind - I tend to have problems with anatomy and perspective.   When posing a character for design I do something simple - head on, or 3/4 angle, usually hands up holding something to get a better view of the torso and for some interest.  Else, I like to have the character doing something that reveals a part of their story or personality.  Maybe a small scene of them working if their job is interesting, or if they have any neat hobbies.  An action pose if they're always running around, or showing how they like to chill out or hang out with friends, or interacting with something from their story or universe.

Reference photos are my friend - my favourite is definitely senshistock  - the gallery is very well organized and there's a large variety of poses, so if I know what kind of pose I  want my character to be in (sitting, standing, jumping, etc) I can usually find a reference pretty quickly.  I think this is could still be useful for you if you can't visualize how you want your character to pose - maybe you can browse until you find some you like?

Another thing I've recently discovered that I haven't had the chance to use but that seems quite helpful are 3D pose apps.  I have 2 for my phone called 'Make A Pose' and 'MagicPoses' (I'm sure there will be ones for the computer as well) - they let you manipulate and pose a 3d model of a person, and get any view of it.  Since it's virtual 3d space the perspective won't be perfectly realistic, and the body types are usually limited, but they still seem quite helpful and I'm excited to try them out more.  

I hope any of this helps!

i agree, basically building a big gallery of stock pictures and anatomy references. i personally use a locked pinterest board for art refs (mostly because a good amount of content is stolen and i don't really want to circulate it skdjfhsd) and collect both art with inspiring concepts and pictures of people to practice drawing. but yeah posing can be difficult without having a good amount to look at and build from. i also recommend starting by learning anatomy as a whole a bit more in-depth because being able to know how body structures work together is an important part of strong posing. c: 

i also see gesture drawing come up quite a bit - i personally don't love it but it can be helpful to practice drawing quickly and working on anatomy. quickposes is a good site with timed practice. 

also, i try to really accentuate the important parts of the character through posing. that can bring out lots of individuality !! 

Watching jojo of course

Being serious. Iactually research a lot of references before setting on one. Since I'm a huge sucker for body language.

I can relate having crippling memory issues but what I usually do is use photographic or anatomical reference (use 3D reference only if you are confident enough cause depending how the model you use is rigged, it can look like a balloon animal) and draw from life time to time in between fictional art. Pose lines are also your friends, those swooshy S shaped lines you see in rough sketches actually help a lot. 

Agree with everyone above!

1) MagicPoser app on mobile
This is my go-to! Highly customizable and most importantly the dolls are realistic (aka anatomy problems that arise from the doll itself is low).

However, posing dolls may not be realistic due to lack in anatomy/muscle knowledge. Sometimes I pose the dolls in ways that the actual irl muscles won't be able to bend.

2) Google/Pinterest
Just search em up and ta-da!


For how to come up with poses, aka which poses to use for that certain character, usually what I do is try to think of the character's personality. What situation would I want to see them in? For example, if I had an playful assassin character and I would want them to be in a fighting situation, then I would look for "fighting stances/poses" then look for the poses that would fit them and reference from that ^-^

I use Hero Forge! It has a lot of preset poses to pick from and a freestyle poser too! It even works for anthros or centaurs!