Lesson: Silhouettes and Pose Selection (Patreon)

A few years back, my friend told me of an advice they got from a teacher in art school:

"You don't have to make it realistic, you just have to make it convincing.”

Silhouettes can be used as a tool to convince your viewers. You can use it to make your character look bigger or bulkier than they really are. You can use it to imply personality, a wider silhouette for a dominant masculine character, or a narrower silhouette for a shy, closed-up character, etc.

Basics

I’ll start with some examples:

This first example is simple enough. I got a ref, and I traced the lines over it. The result is a nice-lookin sketch of the guy.

Compare it to:

In this example, I took some liberties with the overall shape of the figure. I widened the shoulders and the position of the elbows, squared up the shape of the torso, etc.

The resulting image ends up giving a very different impression. But why is that? It’s virtually the same pose, and the changes are quite minor, right?

It’s because our brain perceives silhouettes first, before processing details.

Below are the same two drawings, but with the inner details all blocked out.

This is the first impression that our brain gets when looking at an object. When it comes to human bodies especially, a lot can be perceived just from the silhouette. It’s the basics of body language, how you can tell if someone’s confident or timid, if someone’s relaxed or uncomfortable, etc.

I’m not saying one is better than the other. Instead, the main takeaways from this are:

1. Silhouettes are very important, even if you don’t necessarily notice them.
2. You have control over your drawing’s silhouette. Tweak things if necessary to fit your vision.
3. The ways you control your drawings’ shape and silhouette is a big part of your style.

I’ll go deeper into it.

Importance of Silhouette

When you’re learning muscles, it’s easy to get fixated on the details. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but make sure you’re not forgetting to make the silhouette itself look good.

Let’s look at an extreme example.

Above is a drawing I did where I focused almost entirely on the details of the muscles. Making each muscle bulge and making him B I G.

By no means is this a bad drawing. He’s hot and bulky and everything.

But let’s compare it to another example.

Here is a similar drawing where I put a much greater focus on the silhouette rather than the details of the muscles.

Notice how he still looks B I G even though his muscles aren’t bulging everywhere.

On top of that, you can tell from his stance that he’s proud, confident, maybe even domineering.

Let’s look at them side to side.

Looking at them like this, the difference becomes stark. I’ll bet that the guy on the right catches your attention faster than the guy on the left. This is a demonstration on the importance of the silhouette.

As mentioned before, the brain perceives the silhouette faster than it can process details. So, looking at these two pictures, the first thing your brain perceives is something like this:

Looking at them like this, notice how the silhouette on the left isn’t immediately recognisable as a person. It’s kind of blobby and undefined. It takes an extra second or two for the brain to process like, “oh, those are bulging muscles, nice!”

Meanwhile, the silhouette on the right is instantly recognisable. And so, when put side-to-side, your brain latches on to the recognisable figure first.

Controlling your Silhouette

So how exactly can you make your silhouettes look good? The key is to start with a vision, which dictates your selection of poses.

Here’s another example:

This pose didn’t come out of nowhere.

A few considerations happened in my mind while formulating it.

The important points I wanted to show off/highlight were:

1. The curve of his back and lats
2. The plumpness of his pecs
3. The squared-ness of his midsection (to contrast his back and his pecs)
4. His large shoulder and upper arms
5. The curve of his butt
6. And of course, his doubledicks

After mapping out my vision, it was just a matter of problem solving, figuring out where each body part goes so the correct silhouette is achieved. 

This process usually takes a bit of trial and error as well as looking at a bunch of references.

There’s some artists that I tend to reference when figuring out silhouettes. My personal favourites are Remert, CheschireBacon, Gomtang_P, and Syukapong

An extra note on controlling your silhouette: rim lighting is a very powerful tool for breaking up silhouettes and highlighting lines that would otherwise be blocked out.

You’ll notice this technique of breaking up silhouettes with rim lighting being used often in Noir-style artworks and photography, because the style puts paramount importance in dark but striking silhouettes.

Silhouette as part of your Style

When looking up art tutorials, especially those with a cartoony style, there’s usually a big emphasis on your character’s silhouettes. This is true even when your style leans towards semi-realism.

Artists like Remert, Megawaffle, Taoren, and CheschireBacon have very recognisable silhouettes. When you see their art out of context, it takes only a split second for you to recognise who drew it.

You don’t necessarily need to worry about how to make the silhouettes you draw recognisable. This will come with time, as you refine your own drawing process and develop quirks that will make up your style.

The important point here is to be brave, and don’t stick too close to references. Add your own flair, make the artwork your own, an interpretation or reimagination of the reference(s), instead of simply a reproduction of it. Don’t shy away from experimentation, figure out what appeals to your vision and work with it.

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If you have any questions, feel free to hit me up in the Art Labs channel in the AA Labs Discord!