Coming up with sprite poses?

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Vegeluxia
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Coming up with sprite poses?

#1 Post by Vegeluxia »

Maybe I just overthink it, but do you guys ever just have a hard time coming up with a pose to put your character's in---specifically for their "base" pose? Not considering alternate poses, but in cases where one pose would be constant throughout.

I feel like there's got to be a balance between natural looking and interesting, because just standing there doing nothing (arms down, forward facing, no head tilt, ect.) would maybe get awkward after a while, but other poses make awkward constants. I try to take something from their personality, and correspond it to a natural looking pose, because it can also get kind of weird if everyone is just standing there. And then there's the matter of making sure everyone fits on the screen together if they have to.

How do you guys come up with poses for your character sprites? Are there certain things you take into consideration, or do you just start drawing and go with it? What do you think even makes a "good" sprite pose?

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ISAWHIM
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Re: Coming up with sprite poses?

#2 Post by ISAWHIM »

There is a TON of great information about "power poses", if you google it. That is where I would start.

Body-language, power poses, casual poses.

Here is a great TED-TALK on youtube...
Though, this is mostly about the talking, there are great search-terms mentioned for further research. Some poses, but I would not use those for idle poses. :P


For most of my casual stances, I use mostly assertive poses, or ones that show interest... as if they are listening to you.
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rito
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Re: Coming up with sprite poses?

#3 Post by rito »

Your concern is a major one IMO. Personally, I try to keep in mind factors like:
-a shy character is more likely not to face the viewer directly, and to pose "defensively" like arms crossed. They might also look down (also works for pessimistic people).
-on the other hand, an outgoing character, or one that's very comfortable towards the MC, might lean towards them, or show a generally open stance.
-although VN sprites tend to be thigh- or waist-up, at least sketching out how they stand can help figure out the balance and make for more interesting poses.
-you can give your character some unconscious habit like fiddling with their hair so they have something to do with their hands.

I've barely scratched the surface, so as ISAWHIM said, it would be a good start to study body language. Plus it'll help with CGs too!
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Vegeluxia
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Re: Coming up with sprite poses?

#4 Post by Vegeluxia »

rito wrote:-a shy character is more likely not to face the viewer directly, and to pose "defensively" like arms crossed. They might also look down (also works for pessimistic people).
-on the other hand, an outgoing character, or one that's very comfortable towards the MC, might lean towards them, or show a generally open stance.
-although VN sprites tend to be thigh- or waist-up, at least sketching out how they stand can help figure out the balance and make for more interesting poses.
-you can give your character some unconscious habit like fiddling with their hair so they have something to do with their hands.
Those are generally things I also keep in mind. More recently, I've started drawing my sprites in full body and just having a slightly transparent line set as the top layer where I plan to crop them later. It's helps me visualize the height of the cast better when I have their feet on the same line.
ISAWHIM wrote:For most of my casual stances, I use mostly assertive poses, or ones that show interest... as if they are listening to you.
A neat read, but yeah, a lot of the "power poses" are pretty over the top. I could see some working for an equally over the top character though. More than once and in different classes, I've also been told that body language is more important than the actual face, so that's definitely a point of consideration. C:

I think my biggest issue is less coming up with poses, and more coming up with poses that aren't weird constants. I think a good example would be these two:

This is an odd pose to me. It's neat, and it's not a bad pose, but it's really weird to look at for hours and hours.
5092-593093599.png
This feels like a more natural constant pose, I feel like. The arms are doing something (if having your hand pocketed counts as something. I like to think it does.) but not in the same, weird way as the other one.
5092-128426135.png

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Re: Coming up with sprite poses?

#5 Post by indoneko »

The second pose is more relaxed, so it's also more relaxing to watch for hours (compared to the first one, which looks as if he was trying to cover a bullet hole on his belly..)
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Re: Coming up with sprite poses?

#6 Post by Drew »

Vegeluxia - I wouldn't worry to much about a pose looking boring, over a pose just looking unnatural to hold of any more than an instant.

If when covering sprite art you can afford (time or money) to have one or two dynamic poses then you can animate things a bit. A couple of non-neutral poses doesn't looks so weird but if a character isn't going to change position I feel you've really got to go with one neutral pose. I would find in uncomfortable to watch someone in-game stand for the entirety with their hand behind their head.

If you want to justify in-game a fixed pose, as you say, giving them something to do with their hands (so long as it's plausible)—holding a something or having their hands in your pockets etc—is a good way of doing it.

As people have said, it depend to a degree on how much of the character is showing. If it's a half-body view then you're going to look much more at the face and that's where you want to focus your efforts, where-as for a full-body view, the face is a much smaller % of what you're seeing and body language is more import.

And the end of the day it will come down to how much effort you want to put into your sprites. Though small 'cheats' might help you increase a few poses without spending too much time on re-work. If you set-up your layers so small details like hands or heads can tilt or move (without significantly needing any more changes) then you can give a bit of a motion to a neutral pose without a large increase of work load.
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Re: Coming up with sprite poses?

#7 Post by MoonByte »

One good source to find a nice pose that a character might be in for long are "Live Drawing" videos.
Especially if they cover time spans of 10-30 minutes since the model will be in a pose that he/she can actually hold for that long (and thus will probably a relaxed and comfortable one in contrast to the insane ones they might do in the 1-5 min drawings).
I often use either that or just drawing strangers in public to get a nice pose (like people waiting at a bus station or standing in line for a coffee in a cafe).
While it is 100% important to make them somewhat stand out (and ideally convey their personality and mood), I would always prefer a realistic "I am standing and having this conversation" pose over a "THIS SHOWS HOW ENERGETIC AND HYPERACTIVE I AM" pose where the character retty much floats on their toes in mid-air.

This Youtube channel for example has loads of awesome Life Drawing video material, in case you want to go that way and there are many more channels like it (I am subscribed to, like, four different ones).
Just draw some of the poses until you feel like one of them fits perfect for what you're looking ;)

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