Poser Has Ruined Me

Poser has ruined me.

Or more precisely, hard reference has ruined me.

Or even more precisely, I have ruined myself.

I have never formally studied art, and most of the tutorials I have watched are NOT about the fundamentals. For two decades, I've just kept doing what I have been doing since I was small. That is, copying what I saw. Even when I finally had my own character, my own stories, and my own goals, I'm still just copying things that I saw.

For the most part, my workflow has been: browse Pinterest, find a pose that's closest to what I imagined, and then copy it. Or fiddling with poser and then. . .copy its pose.

Starting from simple shapes, gestures, and actual anatomy, I have not really learned any of them.

And that has ruined me.

Last year, I published my own webtoon (on the internet). You can check it out in the webtoon section of this site too. Aside from the consistently inconsistent style because I worked on it in my spare time for a year, there's also one other thing that is consistent between all of them.

That is.

Stiff poses. They are everywhereeeeeeee aaaaaaa.

Not learning the fundamentals has bitten me in the ass.

I have avoided it with the excuse that I don't really need it. Which is kinda true when talking about illustrations.

I don't mean to brag, but these… for a low-mid-level artist like me, are quite good. But they just don't have the OOOMPHHH of drawings by people who actually learned how to do things properly.

Illustrations and drawings for story panels are two completely different beasts.

This year, I plan to make another webtoon with a far simpler style. Previously, I drew them in a style that had too many details and colors. Drawings that looked like individual illustrations. A style that's tooooo time-consuming and tiring to do.

But as I have just laid out, my posing skills are too pitiful for my new needs. And this alone is a big deterrent to my plan. So maybe, it's time for me to actually learn HOW to draw. Starting with the fundamentals.