Flying across the sky or just strolling down the street, capturing a dynamic gesture is what moves your story forward.

Every character you draw is in a pose; standing, walking, jumping, running or just sitting on the couch. Your character's pose can tell us even more about the story than the words on the page. 

If you're ready to sharpen your character-drawing skills then this class is for you. Illustrator and cartoonist Jake Parker takes students through the fundamentals of proportion, perspective and some very basic anatomy in order to help students draw a variety of poses from a variety of angles.  

You'll also learn to draw characters in various poses from photographs, from other character's poses, and even by using a flexible plastic model than can be shaped into various poses. 

The Posing Characters Course will challenge you in many ways but completing it (and the assignments) will also reward you with an incredible new skill set that will take your art to the next level. 


In this class you will learn:

  • Posing a character from different types of references: photos, characters, models

  • Draw poses from different angles

  • Develop new poses from your imagination

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About the Instructor

Illustrator/Cartoonist Jake Parker

For the last 25 years Jake has worked on everything from animated films to comics to picture books. For several years he worked for Reel FX and Blue Sky Studios on such projects as Horton Hears a Who, Rio, and Epic. He is the creator of the popular Inktober drawing challenge. Jake currently works as an illustrator and cartoonist on children's books and comics. He works out of his home studio in Arizona.

Course curriculum

    1. Introduction

    2. Pose Problems

    3. Perspective Primer

    4. Bean and Hose Method

    5. The Action Figure

    6. Action Figure Perspective

    7. Applying the Action Figure

    8. Poses from Photo Reference

    9. Poses from Character Reference

    10. Poses from Model Reference

    11. Rotating Character Poses

    12. Process Demo: Standing

    13. Process Demo: Walking

    14. Process Demo: Running

    15. Process Demo: Jumping

    16. Process Demo: Sitting

    17. Conclusion

    18. Exercises Files to Print (PDF)

About this course

  • 18 lessons
  • 2.5 hours of video content
  • 16 Videos
  • 5 Downloads

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