How to get ideas of what to draw my characters doing?

My art seems quite stiff at the moment, and i've kind of pinned it down to the fact I have absolutely no idea what to draw people doing. I can draw people, but my poses aren't really that realistic? I just need to know where to get ideas of what to draw people doing, I think. Thank you!

Good afternoon, Ahugh, and welcome aboard, and how are you doing today? So, if you're saying that you can learn how to draw people, then you're on the right track. And to answer your question, I'd suggest, that in order to draw realistic people more fluidly and lively, then I'd recommend you do, like, 5 minutes of 30 second quick poses, so that you couldn't get too bogged down on the more complicated forms and details.

The reason is that in gesture drawing, it's not only great, but totally important to focus your attention on drawing the spirit of the attitudes; heck, even your realistic drawings would and should benefit from this thing. For most details, look into some Frank Frazetta art, some Gil Elvgren pinups, some Jack Kirby comic sketches, and some 2 PDFs of the Walt Stanchfields. BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE! As an added bonus, I'd like to have you try out the online drawing tutorial here on our site.

Kindly take these with a really smaller grain of salt, and hope they've been helpful.

• Polyvios Animations edited this post on January 14, 2023 11:11pm. Reason: Change spelling

Hi! Honestly, I struggle with the same thing ^^; but I think trying a few 'pose memes' would be a good way to draw your characters doing an action or pose you may not have thought of. I think if you want to combo practice, you could try a few gesture drawings here on this site and transform the gesture into your own character. If you have an artist that you draws poses you like, it's good practice to do a study, try this with different artists (and mediums, magazines, movies, drawings etc) and your mental pose catalogue will hopefully grow and then you can pull from it, at least in theory. I'm still trying to get my catalogue going lol and using a few references is always good :) I used to resist references but it really does help.

Here's a few pose ideas off the top of my head: walking, crouching and looking at a bug, jumping over a rock, sleeping, slouching in a chair, holding hands with another character, eating.