How to Draw Exaggerated Poses

Lesson by

11K

Assignments 133Lesson NotesDownloads 2

How to Draw Exaggerated Poses

Lesson by

Stan Prokopenko

in Figure Drawing Fundamentals

11K

Assignments 133Lesson NotesDownloads 2

Exaggerate Some Poses

Try doing the process that I just described from any poses you feel could be more dynamic. I’ve also included a collection of a few photos with 2 versions of the same pose. One rigid and another more dynamic one. Try exaggerating the rigid ones and check your drawing against the dynamic version.

Keep in mind that there are multiple ways of exaggerating something. If you choose to exaggerate in one way, then check it against the dynamic version and it’s different, that doesn’t mean yours is wrong. They could both be right. You chose to exaggerate it one way and the model chose another way. The dynamic pose is just there as a suggestion. But keep in mind that the model can actually feel the pose. Compare yours to it and see if there’s something you like better in the dynamic photo. Is there something you can learn from it?

Dave S

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This was super difficult for me. Felt like I didn’t get the angle of the legs and feet right on the exaggerated pose. Critiques welcome.

May Berry

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24d

Nicole Guz

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2mo

I usually use traditional but I dont have a transparent paper so i thought id do it in digital which prove to be very different and difficult for me. But let me know how I did!

Rachel Dawn Owens

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2mo

Wow, these are great studies! I like how far you pushed some of these poses. Your boxes look really nice. They bring a solid 3d form to the drawing that gets lost in some of the others. I think you could use more straight lines to balance this out. Heres a quick demo to show you what I mean- Keep it up! I like your drawings!!

Filippo Galli

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4mo

Exaggeration. Very rough.

Joseph Cicero

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7mo

Here are my attempts so far for exaggerated poses. I decided to try a Balanced, Exaggerated, and Unbalanced pose for each of these to see if I could come up with interesting poses. The exaggerated and unbalanced continue to be super challenging for me with trying to draw from imagination. I found that I need to continue building my visual library (aka using references to get an idea of what I'm thinking) for these poses to understand where everything is positioned to make it look believable. Any critique is welcome!

@egusisoup

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7mo

Exageration - Day 4 & 5 This has been an interesting exercise. I have been trying to push the poses more with varying levels of success. Thankfully, it has helped me begin to understand how twisting the torso works.

@egusisoup

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7mo

Exaggeration - Day 2 First day of trying to exaggerate a pose on my own. Was incredibly difficult but looking forward to trying more this week

Rachel Dawn Owens

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7mo

Don’t be afraid to take it too far. Push it till it breaks and you will learn the limits with practice. It’s easier to pull back than it is to push a pose further. These are very nicely proportioned and balanced figures. Great work 😃

Billy Morris

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10mo

Not quite sure about these. Looking at them now lot of them do look like they could of been pushed more but I think I can improve on that with time. What's worrying me the most right now is my mark making as going through this process of drawing the figure has made the issue that much more apparent to me. I figured that it would improve as I go through the lessons and I do think I have been making strides but I'm worried that I may only be continuing to develop bad habits in the long run if I don't find a way to tackle the issue head on. I plan on revisiting the landmarks section in a week or two, I think that may be part of the problem. I also intend to go through the basics course as well at some point as I defiantly think that is worth looking into as well. Any thoughts and/or critique is appreciated.

Gannon Beck

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10mo

The Drawing Basics course is pretty great. I've been drawing for many years and am astounded by how much was missing from my drawing foundation. One of the big things that has helped me in the course, and I think might help you, is Stan's explanation of how he uses rhythms in his gestures. I've watched the videos several times and it's been very helpful. You can check out my album if you want to see how it's been improving may own figure drawing. I believe the PDF E-book Stan made for rhythms is a part of the free section. Here is a link: https://www.proko.com/course-lesson/ebook-rhythms/discussions Your structure stuff is looking good. Keep at it!

hArtMann

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1yr

Definitely the most challenging assignment so far from this course. Saw a reference that looked static and gave me ideas on how to exaggerate it so I used it and tried to add some drama to it.

@grugrugru

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1yr

Exaggerated poses, challenging lesson to think how u can exaggerate and how much. Had more trouble with the second drawing, my failed attempt is there too. Critique or advice is much appreciated.

Canaan Yuhl

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1yr

Hey I just wanted to ask what kind of brush do you use. You have really clean line work. I'm still messing around with different sketch brushes but can't seem to find the right one.

Arman Jucutan

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1yr

Hello everyone here is my handins for this lesson. please feel free to give your thoughts and critique

Jack

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1yr

This is my first attempt. I don't have premium, so I don't really know if I'm doing this correctly.

Patrick Bosworth

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1yr

Nice exaggeration!

Daniel Lykke

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1yr

Here are my assignments. I feel like I am missing some thing they feel very stiff and doesn’t have any gesture? Should I just redraw the finished posts and add the gesture there or what do you guys think?

Daniel Wood

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1yr

Lenserd martell

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1yr

@jganzy

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1yr

These are awesome

Samuel Sanjaya

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2yr

my 2nd attempt, and doubles as measurement exercise. my bad habit to not converging the torso enough is coming back again, so the torso is turning towards the viewer way more than it should. This often happen when I get too fixated on the measurement. I have a hard time doing exaggeration, especially to "imagine" the pose and movement of the forms. Get overwhelmed really quickly this time. Need some feedbacks on this. Maybe on how to break this bad habit, and not get too fixated and balance all aspect of drawing.

Samuel Sanjaya

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2yr

doing exaggeration from the reference picture provided. I tried to exaggerate without looking from the exaggerated picture first, turns out to be different. did I exaggerate too much ? I hope i can get some feedbacks.. thank you..

Allison Gobbell

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2yr

I think you did well! I would show a bit of overlap in the arch of the back, as the skin would fold in upon itself. Also, not sure if you meant to turn her toward the viewer but the front of torso is a bit slimmer if she is facing the same way. Also the buttocks are a bit lower and I believe would be going out a bit more. Subtle changes!

Josh Fiddler

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2yr

Consider that when the model leans back this far, to maintain balance, she will have to push hips forward more, causing more tension in the thighs. Meaning: there would be more bending at the hips and a rounder midsection into the thighs. The bottom of the ribcage would also be pushing out through the skin. Look at the reference on the far right. See how just in this position her lower ribs are strongly pushing outward?

@costish

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2yr

When you hold your pencil, do you hold it like when you write or like Proko?

Eveline Rupenko

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2yr

Hi everyone! Here are my drawings for this assignment! Struggling with keeping these clean, since this assignment turned out pretty hard! I feel I am getting overfocused on the structure so I lose some of the gesture, think I'll get back to simple gesture drawings in a few lessons just to refresh the feeling of flow and motion within the sketch.

Vera

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2yr

Hello everyone. Here are some of my exaggerated drawings. I had difficulty keeping the proportions accurate to the reference when exaggerating. Advice and critiques are welcomed. Reference images are from line-of-action.com

@pmak22

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2yr

Finished the last three poses, and I am mostly happy with them, though one of them I feel like I may have not quite finished around the chest. Going to move on to proportions....errr after I watch the step by step

Low Horvath

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2yr

Definitely watch the video on proportions as proportions do seem to be an issue. I would also watch the measuring video , I already know how to measure and it really helps with proportions. But also , you’re over complicating the figure. Adding too many contours and it doesn’t seem like you’re breaking the figure into basic shapes that you understand. . Work more on designing your shapes. Design shapes that are easy to remember, easy enough that you can replicate the drawing without a reference.

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Stan Prokopenko

Founder of Proko, artist and teacher of drawing, painting, and anatomy. I try to make my lessons fun and ultra packed with information.