Art Reference Female Pose Art Reference Female Pose Action Lunge

In this useful guide, y'all will find the best pose reference websites, apps, and books for artists that will help you to draw, or learn to draw humans in various poses and exercise gesture drawing.

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Quick note: The pose reference tools – sites, apps and books – will comprise nude models or depictions, and so if you are underage, or sensitive to such subject field affair, you should continue this in mind.

My Four Favorite Pose References
Best Paid Pose Reference Websites in 2022
Best Free Pose Reference Websites in 2022
Best Pose Reference Smartphone Apps in 2022
All-time Pose Reference Books in 2022

My 4 Favorite Pose References

Featured Course

Featured

Paid Pose Reference Website

Proko Pose References

Learn from the Masters of Anatomy and Poses.

Awesome library of pose reference photos for a reasonable price! High-resolution photo references - each pack contains hundreds of images.

Become THEM NOW

Proko.com – a fully professional resource center for pose references and so much more than, and one of the finest online art education programs going – highly recommended!

Get it here: Proko Photo References

Complimentary Pose Reference Website

Pose-My-Art-Art-Side-of-Life — Pose My Art Website Interface

Pose My Art – a really useful configurable mannequin that is far more realistic and fully realized than most, and can help yous get to pretty much any pose.

Pose Reference App

Magic Poser – a actually valuable free resources for any artist!

Pose Reference Volume

If yous are looking for the best male person pose references, the best female pose references, the best pose references for older people, young adults, teens or children, for various body types, looks and styles, ethnicities, even attitudes, these sites volition have you covered.

And then let'south go into information technology, with my listing of the best pose reference resource for artists on the market today!

Best Paid Pose Reference Websites in 2022

Proko.com

Proko Pose References

Learn from the Masters of Anatomy and Poses.

Awesome library of pose reference photos for a reasonable cost! High-resolution photo references - each pack contains hundreds of images.

GET THEM At present

URL: www.proko.com
Blazon: Pose Photograph References
Pricing: Premium

As I've already said, this is my favorite modeling pose reference website – in fact, my favorite pose reference site catamenia, paid or free – and the 1 I recommend nigh strongly. Information technology is also a brilliant site overall, with not just pose references but great, well designed and well-taught courses on all aspects of making art, a salubrious online art customs and a lot more than.

But we're here for the pose references, and I have to say that Proko's pose packs – individually priced for download – are fabulous! They are extremely well shot, high resolution, clear and useful, and each pack contains hundreds of images. Considering the quality, usefulness and range of images, the individual pack prices are quite low.

And the same is truthful for the courses themselves, which really focus on the basics, are taught by a broad range of great teachers and cover all of the well-nigh important (and all of the most popular) discipline matter. Specially splendid are courses on human form, anatomy and portraiture – which again relates directly to why nosotros're hither – but all of the classes, and all of the resources, are great, and I tin't recommend Proko highly enough!

BodiesInMotion.photograph

Featured

Bodies-in-Motion-Art-Side-of-Life — Bodies in Move Website Interface

URL: https://www.bodiesinmotion.photo

Type: Photographic Motion Sequences, 3D Scans, Artworks

An absolutely cute website, and a truly premium service in every way, Scott Eaton's Bodies in Motion is ane of the best fine art resources I have ever institute. With high resolution motion images of different models, incredibly detailed 3D scans and cute artwork, this is among the best sites on the internet for artists, animators, illustrators and more.

This really is, or at least should be considered, a paid service. Yep, there are gratis images, but for example yous take access to 36 motion sequences for free, and something like 670 move sequences with your subscription. Same with the stunning 3D scans, of which 22 are attainable for complimentary, merely a whopping 450 for paid users.

That said, the full (non-commercial) programme is less than a hundred dollars for a year, and given the superb quality of these images, and their usefulness to whatever artist, this is a deal. In fact, I would about phone call Bodies in Movement a must-have for serious art students, working commercial artists, fine artists and studios.

Creative person-Reference.com

Artist-Reference — Artist Reference Website Interface

URL: artist-reference.com
Type: Pose Reference Photographs & 3D Scans
Pricing: Premium

Artist's Reference is actually just a elementary habitation page / starting signal, which leads to at least six dissimilar and highly useful libraries of fine art reference images:

Female person Anatomy for Artists
Human Beefcake for Artists
Photo Reference for Comic Artists
Human Photo References
Environs Textures
HDR Skydome

The beginning four of these sites employ directly to what we're talking almost hither – the best pose references websites – but all six are really quite valuable to pretty much any artist. And with beautiful quality high resolution photographic images and superb 3D scans, all very well organized and easily accessible, the sites are even more valuable still.

This is not the cheapest premium service, only it is definitely 1 of the best, and for working artists or art studios – not to mention art students – it is a slap-up investment, and one you might use a lot more than y'all realize.

Best Complimentary Pose Reference Websites in 2022

AdorkaStock.com

URL: www.adorkastock.com
Deviant Art: www.deviantart.com/adorkastock
Type: Pose Reference Photographs
Pricing: Free / Premium

This is a fascinating site, which focuses on what we might call "normal" homo grade – this is probably not the right phrase, considering many of their bizarre, not-traditional and fringe models and poses are far from mainstream conceptions of normal, but I mean more than that you are non going to find any idealized "supermodel" beauty here, only human being form as it actually exists in the existent world.

You can either check out their free images on Deviant Art, or on their own web app – world wide web.adorkastock.com/sketch. With timed sequences, the app page iis great at getting at the spontaneity of gesture drawing and crude sketching, but the photos can exist paused or non-timed also, for specific reference work and detail. Y'all tin can specify different types of poses and elements, timer duration, cycle or course mode (which only changes the type of timer), and keep track of your favorite images and personal goals by opening a gratis account.

Non the largest set of free images (there are far more bachelor to premium members), and many are a bit shocking to the faint of heart, but I take to say that this site is not merely very useful but quite endearing in its style, and I really recommend information technology. And again, you can also check out their images on Deviant Fine art, at the address above.

PoseMy.Fine art

URL: posemy.art
Type: Online Effigy Posing App
Pricing: Free

This website, which features a lifelike, poseable human avatar, is merely amazing! First of all, information technology really is free – I proceed waiting for a pop-upward to tell me that my time has run out, or that this or that item pose is not really complimentary, merely no. I don't even see a link for donations.

And information technology is very, very useful. Many people will say that these poseable mannequin apps or sites are non very usable, realistic or skilful models for cartoon and painting, and it is often truthful that the figures don't accept clear or accurate depiction of musculature or real human shape. But, as we've talked about a fleck already, mannequins – whether physical or virtual – are in fact actually great for poses, especially rest and infinite, line and flow, gesture and energy.

And the mannequin on posemy.art is actually quite dainty – fully rendered and lifelike, and an excellent model for artists. With the ability to pose, calibration, change lighting and perspective, add other models and even other images from your library, this is a very advanced web-based app – and, it's free!

JustSketch.Me

URL: justsketch.me
Type: Configurable Digital Mannequin – Webapp, macOS app, Windows app
Pricing: Gratuitous / Premium

Just Sketch Me is a spider web-based application which allows you lot to pose and variously configure a digital mannequin. It seems very similar website to Pose My Art (reviewed below) merely honestly I would recommend the latter – PMA – over Only Sketch Me. Still, there is value hither, and this pose reference site definitely warrants inclusion.

The main issue is that the Just Sketch Me web app is a wee fleck buggy – at least on Chrome it is. Information technology seems designed to be run on the Microsoft Edge cyberspace browser, and often does not even load in Chrome (I did non effort it on other browsers). There is also a totally complimentary downloadable app, but it actually requires Border to be installed, even when working offline, then in the Windows world this isn't really optimal – peculiarly for people who accept tried so fervently to avoid Microsoft Edge and keep it off their computers.

It is better going in the Apple earth, though, and But Sketch Me is, on either platform, really a nicely designed system. There is also a premium version, although you don't get a ton more for your money, and I suspect most people stay with the free edition.

CharacterDesigns.com

URL: www.characterdesigns.com
Type: Model Photographs
Pricing: Free

Graphic symbol Blueprint is a slap-up website for comic book, cartoon, graphic novel and animation / anime artists, every bit they really focus on outfits, weapons, cosplay and other costumes and characters.

It is a fiddling hard to navigate the site, and I practice wish there was a more clear and consummate ready of menus and inventory of available images, but if you are willing to take the time to search and browse you volition discover some brilliant images and some actually useful pose references here.

Deviant Art

URL: world wide web.deviantart.com
Type: Diverse – Online Art Community
Pricing: Various – Generally Free

Honestly, I wasn't even certain if I would include Deviant Fine art hither – yep, they may exist the biggest online fine art community, and an incredible, invaluable resource and networking platform, and I really do take so much love and gratitude for them.

Simply I also notice the site a flake, well, claustrophobic, difficult to get my bearings, find my manner around and get to specifically what I'm looking for. Pose reference sites and apps are kind of supposed to exist the reverse – you don't need to spend hours and hours looking for a muscular male lying downwardly (or, for some people I know, years and years), but just enter your parameters or check the menus / indexes and voila.

With Deviant Art, though, it is pretty easy to spend fashion too much time finding the reference image you need, and to go repeatedly distracted forth the fashion. Withal, in that location are nearly a gazillion images here, and tons of them are specifically pose references which are costless to use.

And then perchance the best thing to exercise is requite Deviant Art a qualified recommendation, and mention a couple of specific pages which tin can actually help you cutting through the density:

AdorkaStock'southward Pose Reference Listing – curated by the loveable crew at AdorkaStock (see recommendation to a higher place), this is a good list of many different pose reference resource on Deviant Fine art
dAPoses – besides managed by AdorkaStock, forth with Skydancer, this is a sub-group of Deviant Art devoted exclusively to reference pose images

Google Images

URL: images.google.com/
Type: Diverse
Pricing: Free

An frequently disregarded resource when it comes to pose reference (and equally valuable for really whatsoever kind of image reference, from beings to things), Google Images probably has the largest selection of images in the world.

This is, of grade, both good and bad. Yous can almost certainly notice what you are looking for (chartreuse conflicting dancing – for real!) but it might take a long time to locate the epitome and navigate to the bodily hosting site, which for reasons beyond my ken does not always seem to fifty-fifty accept the image.

And then we can't ignore or dismiss Google Images, but I would strongly recommend you use them in an more "off-time" way – that is, not when you are in the throes of artistic fervor, and need a picture of a chartreuse alien dancing Right At present, or when deadlines loom, simply when you have time to spare and tin scan and collect a library of high quality poses images that you can keep locally or in your ain personal cloud.

URL: www.pinterest.com
Blazon: Various
Pricing: Gratis

Another absolutely huge library of images of all types, including countless pose references, Pinterest shares another quality with Google Images (above) – information technology can be admittedly overwhelming, and a serious black hole of time and productivity.

And so, while we can and should avail ourselves of such a tremendous resources, I recommend that you lot approach Pinterest in the same fashion as Google Images – that is, not when yous're working, in the artistic menstruation or facing a deadline, merely on off fourth dimension, when the 17.3 gazillion results you get from "EMO grandmother doing a handstand" will be fun to scan through, not maddeningly stressful.

Ok, in truth you lot may not even become 17 hits from "EMO grandmother doing a handstand," let alone gazillions, only you go my point…

QuickPoses.com

URL: quickposes.com
Type: Model Photographs
Pricing: Free / Donation for App

Quick Poses can really help go an artist out of their head and into drawing human poses and form more than spontaneously – and often, as a result, with more life and feeling.

With challenges, timed practice and random poses, all of which ask you to draw several different poses in a certain time frame, the focus isn't on accented accuracy or item, or even on finishing, but on capturing grade, menses and energy, also every bit representing the way a trunk looks in different situations and poses. There's as well a downloadable desktop app, which you lot can get by making a 15 dollar donation.

This site is not designed to discover and utilise a specific pose – say, man sitting or dancer leaping – but for sketching practice with excellent photographs that are substantially randomly selected, Quick Poses is a very valuable tool for the art student or anybody who just wants to improve their fine art.

SketchDaily.net

URL: reference.sketchdaily.cyberspace
Type: Model Photographs

Y'all may know SketchDaily more than for their Reddit site, which lists daily prompts for lots of the almost pop and important art challenges, simply they also have a pose reference site they do, after all, have over ane and a half million followers! Wow, can that be correct?

But they also have the "SketchDaily reference doohickey," a very elementary web app that, based on a few parameters that you select, displays excellent quality photographs of models in various poses.

While the configuration does not allow you to find specific types of poses – similar sitting, kneeling, dancing, etc – information technology does allow yous to specify:

Gender
Vesture
Action or stationary poses
View angle

… and based on those parameters yous will go first-class model photographs for sketching, drawing or painting, with or without a time limit.

So, not a true on-demand pose reference database, but instead more a tool for practicing poses, the SketchDaily doohickey is however quite a valuable gratis resource.

Best Pose Reference Smartphone Apps in 2022

Let me start this section with a few basic comments. I am only including free apps hither, since it has been my experience that paid apps are ofttimes, well, kind of sad. Or, better put, they are perhaps non worth the investment, and don't offer enough of an upgrade in range or library contents, functionality, interface and ease of employ or anything else to justify the price.

The free apps, though, are amazing – I understand that developers make money, like on ads and stuff, but I still can't believe how advanced, powerful and useful some of these free apps can be!

I am also sticking with configurable mannequin types of apps hither, and avoiding the photo library variety. The best digital avatar apps are genuinely useful to artists who need pose reference, and the level of configurability and flexibility are awesome, just the photograph apps on smartphone platforms tend to be incredibly express, with a very small selection of sometimes quite poor quality images.

And so, with all that in mind, here are the best pose reference apps I accept found!

Magic Poser App

URL: magicposer.com
Platforms: iOS, Android & now Lite Webapp as well

I would have to say that physics makes this my favorite pose reference app. Magic Poser is fifty-fifty easier to apply and more than intuitive than others – and they're all pretty straightforward – and when you conform the mannequins they have a kind of right and familiar movement and automatically adjust themselves into natural position. A really valuable free resource for any artist!

Poseit App

Platform: iOS, Android

A newer pose reference app on the scene, Poseit presents more of a fully realized 3D prototype, which can help you better become at not just poses only the look and experience of the body in that pose. There are some bugs, and perhaps a few too many ads, but this is a actually well adult and useful free app.

Easy Pose App

Platform: iOS, Android

An extremely like shooting fish in a barrel app to utilize, Easy Pose is remarkably powerful and useful, with command over joint movement, lite direction, perspective and distance and downloadable pose images. The premium version offers more functionality, merely even the free version is peachy!

Pose Max App

Platform: Android

If you check reviews on this app, many people complain about the lack of added or advanced functionality, like changing pilus, clothes or other features, or extended animation. Only really, when you consider what it'southward for, and that it is a free app, Pose Max is actually an incredibly well made, intuitive, powerful and complete app, and definitely worth checking out.

All-time Pose Reference Books in 2022

What are the all-time pose reference books on the marketplace today?
What are the all-time books for human pose reference?
What are the best books for human pose reference?
What are the best books for female pose reference?
What are the all-time books for male pose reference?
Which pose reference book do professional or fine artists use?

With the loftier functionality and real usefulness – not to mention the slickness – of online pose reference tools and apps, it is like shooting fish in a barrel to overlook the good, onetime fashioned book.

But in fact in that location are tons and tons of cracking books for getting pose references, and they can offering some existent advantages:

They are always right there and bachelor, even if internet isn't
Books can exist easier to browse, and information technology tin can be easier to find but the correct pose
Some artists adopt seeing the prototype on paper – especially if they are cartoon onto paper
Books are a unmarried, unremarkably quite depression, investment, while many sites charge for each image pack, or yous accept to pay once again and again for ongoing subscriptions
Books sometimes offer ameliorate, more professional and college quality images and overall production

And anyhow, they're books, and books are just plainly cool! So, here is a brusk list of my favorite books for pose reference:

Figure Drawing for All Information technology'due south Worth
Drawing the Head and Hands & Effigy Drawing (Box Set)

Past Andrew Loomis

We're starting with an absolute classic, beloved and widely used for many decades. Andrew Loomis's Figure Cartoon for All Information technology'due south Worth is not just a great reference for poses, merely for all aspects of human form, and is likewise even so the best fundamental primer available for drawing people.

Even if y'all take had a formal fine art education, or taken classes on cartoon the man class, you will exist amazed at how helpful Loomis'south book is, and how much yous will acquire. Improve still, for complete mastery, consider getting his iii volume box set.

The Yoga Anatomy Coloring Book
The Yoga Anatomy Coloring Book Book two – Pose by Pose

By Kelly Solloway and Samantha Stutzman

I know, this article isn't a guide to yoga books, or anatomy books, but these cute and enormously popular coloring books do such a fantastic chore illustrating poses, natural trunk alignment, posture and interaction. And their articulate and make clean lines, perfect colour accent and basic anatomy illustrations brand each drawing as visually effective every bit possible. Not merely for pose reference, but for understanding what's backside any pose, these are bright books!

Figure Drawing for Kids

By Angela Rizza

The best pose reference book for kids, this excellent volume uses poses, movement, balance and shape to teach kids the basics of human being form drawing – and and then it is much more than just pose references. Although clearly written at a certain level, many adults take also enjoyed and benefited from this delightful book, merely for kids information technology's a slam douse.

Effigy It Out! Drawing Essential Poses
Effigy It Out! The Beginner'due south Guide to Drawing People
Effigy It Out! Human Proportions

Past Christopher Hart

The first championship, Drawing Essential Poses, is a new classic in not only pose reference, only in learning how to draw poses. All three of these books, though, are superb, and form a full and uncommonly lucid overall film of how to all-time draw the human form.

Poses for Artists Volumes 1-six

Poses for Artists Volume 1: Dynamic and Sitting Poses
Poses for Artists Book 2: Standing Poses
Poses for Artists Volume 3: Fighting and Various Poses
Poses for Artists Volume 4: Couple Poses
Poses for Artists Volume five: Hands, Skulls, Pivot-Ups and Diverse Poses
Poses for Artists Volume half-dozen: An Essential Reference for Figure Cartoon and the Human Form.

By Justin Martin

Justin Martin'due south six volume fix of pose reference books is non simply one of the about complete and comprehensive of its kind, just likewise filled with illustrations that are cute, authentic and useful, and really capture the human form in any position. If you only buy one pose reference book, get in these six :). An absolute must for fine artists, students, commercial artists and fine art studios.

The Complete Book of Poses for Artists

By Ken Goldman

Basic and complete, Goldman'due south book has articulate, accurate, attractive and very usable drawings of over 500 homo poses. With special care given to capturing light, free energy and motility, balance and proportion, this is a really indispensable fine art reference book for any working artist or studio, and a neat value

It is my dearest wish and goal to brand Fine art Side of Life a complete resource for whatever artist – whether y'all are a total beginner, an art student, a working commercial artist, a fine artist, a crafter or any other kind of creative person. And one of the nearly of import resources whatever artist tin can perhaps take or employ is a skillful, accurate and usable source of pose references for the human torso.

As a self-taught artist, I am peculiarly mindful of how people larn, and it is really important to me that my students, and the readers of these articles, learn in the correct way. And because so much in fine art depends on realistically rendered human beings – with life, energy, motion and proportion – I have peculiarly focused on helping artists observe as many tools every bit possible and then that they can correctly larn, and confidently draw and paint, the human form.

I've already posted manufactures on the Best Cartoon Figures (mannequins), the Best Drawing Books (with a section on Anatomy and Figure Drawing skills), I've listed more books on anatomy, life and figure drawing, drawing and comic volume art and portraiture in my Resources Page, and recently posted an article on Human and Animal Beefcake.

What is a Pose Reference?

What exactly is a pose reference?
What are pose references used for?
Are pose references necessary?
Are in that location male person pose references and female pose references?
Is a pose reference every bit skilful as a real model?

When y'all are a earth famous artist, with a fabulous studio overlooking the Seine, wings devoted to your piece of work at various international art museums, and models lined up to work with you, you can tell the model du jour to sit straight, to slouch in the chair, to stand up up, to enhance their right hand, to curve their left human knee, to sit down in a full lotus position and levitate off the ground – whatever y'all and your composition want or need. And they will be willing and able to do almost all of them.

This is exactly the idea of a pose reference volume, site or app. You will take a model – either an avatar-type estimator figure, a realistic drawing, a photograph or a 3D scan – on your screen (or page), and be able to describe the exact pose you want or demand.

Many of the sites volition have pre-prepared images of man forms, both male and female (and, more and more, non-binary), as drawings or reference photos, or somtimes incredibly detailed and lifelike 3D scans, and in those cases yous simply get through a library of on-hand images to observe the exact pose (and often the verbal body type, gender, historic period, way (or state) of dress and other characteristics) to draw from.

Other sites, and most apps, will accept a sort of configurable digital mannequin, which you can manipulate – make sit or stand up, move and curve elbows, knees or any other joint, basically get into any position you fancy – then that you can meet exactly how the body looks in that position. You tin can also normally change the angle of view, or rotate the avatar, and change the lighting color or direction, among other variables. You tin even sometimes add additional figures, props or imported images.

And there are other ways, similar an actual plastic or wooden mannequin (again, a popular artist tool for centuries), a printed volume of drawing poses, or an actual model. All have advantages, and some may appeal more than or less to your own practise or disposition, but the range and convenience of digital pose references is making them incredibly popular of late.

Popular pose references include:

Female pose reference
Male person pose reference
Couple pose reference
Sitting pose reference
Standing pose reference
Dynamic pose reference
Activeness pose reference
Cute pose reference
Fighting pose reference
Hand pose reference
Floating pose reference
Dance pose reference

Is It OK to Use Pose References?

Is it ok to apply male person pose references?
Is information technology ok to use female pose references?
Do fellow artists use pose references?
Do professional artists use pose reference websites and apps?
Is using male or female pose references cheating?

It's amusing that even really experienced artists still accept this kind of unrealistic and unfair expectation that they should be able to draw or paint things just from their mind's eye and/or imagination, without whatsoever reference or visual aid. We tin even feel a little guilty about needing a model, a photo, 3D scan or drawing of, for case, a human pose reference.

But nosotros do. Using visual references is non somehow cheating, only instead it is the correct manner to draw, and all artists do it. In fact fifty-fifty the great masters, when they painted a character from myth or history, always used live models. "Wow, great painting, Rembrandt, merely is that really Moses, or Arnie from the tavern?"

And using visual models is also the correct fashion non only to describe or pigment, only as well to larn, and this is especially true with the human body in its range and variety of movements and poses. This is why mannequins have been so popular with artists for hundreds of years – not to mention life drawing courses – and why websites, apps and books are huge these days.

Is It Legal to Use Pose References?

The question of artistic rights, copyright, artistic property and usage is not, apparently, completely clear. It is generally idea that poses themselves are non copyrightable or controllable, and if you are using a pose reference for personal use, to come across how the human body looks when kneeling, but making your own unique artwork, you lot should be absolutely fine to use the reference without payment, attribution or worry.

If you are directly copying artwork, withal, it might well exist illegal, and/or inappropriate, to publish or sell your copy – whether the image you copied constitutes your whole piece or merely a office of information technology. And if you are actually using (similar copy/pasting) another creative person's work, or any copyrighted paradigm, you should (or in some cases must) contact them for permission, and mayhap pay usage fees and royalties (commercial use).

You must be clear, though, that I am not a lawyer or legal practiced, and these paragraphs should non be used as final or authoritative legal communication. When in doubt, inquire, and exist cool and respectful to other artists always.

All that said, once more, using pose references to brand your own unique and individual art, without copying, collaging or the like, is commonly but fine – really, that's what they're in that location for!

Thanks so much for reading my latest article – Pose References 101: The Best Websites, Apps and Books for Pose References – and delight visit my blog – Art Side of Life – for tons of other inspiring ideas, resource, articles, buyer's guides and a lot more!

Other articles in the Fine art Books series:

Best Drawing Books
Best Colour Theory Books
Best Art History Books
All-time Perspective Books and Online Courses

Howdy, I am Iva (rhymes with "viva"). I am an artist, illustrator, teacher, and the founder of Art Side of Life™. I've worked as a commercial artist since 2009. I believe that nosotros are all creative in infinite numbers of means and then I've fabricated it my mission to teach you lot everything I know, to contribute to waking up your artistic genius.