What’s this posse of pool-peerers peeping at?
What’s lurking beneath the stream of bubbles, perhaps about to show itself to the onlookers?
All will be revealed later!
I drew this picture a couple of years ago, and when I looked back on it recently it didn’t quite seem right. The female character appeared to neither kneeling nor crawling, but instead adopting some kind of hybrid pose.
Recently a fellow cartoonist was working on some kneeling poses, so I thought this would be a good opportunity to rework this cartoon while at the same time putting together an article on kneeling poses.
Here’s what we’re going to cover
• Two points to look out for
• Don’t blow it out of proportion!
Let’s start with where you are now.
Before you read any further, grab a pen or pencil, and very quickly sketch a kneeling figure. Let’s see what your kneeling figures look like already.
Don’t worry if it doesn’t look quite right, the whole point of this article is getting them to look more a bit better.
Now look at the following example and try to spot anything that doesn’t look quite right to you.
What did you spot?
There is a gap between the foot and the bottom.
The lower leg is too long in comparison to the rest of the leg.
Two points to look out for
Usually there is no space between the floor and the bottom, unless the person is deliberately leaning forward. So make sure that the foot is touching the bottom.
Remember that the upper and lower legs should be roughly the same length as each other.
The corrected version:
Don’t blow it out of proportion!
Now let’s have a quick reminder of human body proportions as applied to our pool-dipper, Yuki.
Let’s also apply this to a kneeling pose.
And here are the two side-by-side.
Return to the pool
Now let’s go back to the original picture and make a few adjustments.
As well altering the pose of the female character, I’m also going to reduce the size of the eyes on all the characters, as well as revealing what strange beastie was lurking beneath the surface.
Introducing the exceedingly rare Purple-Spotted Sea Dragon
No one knows much about the Purple-Spotted Sea Dragon, for as well as being vanishingly rare, and has a habit of vanishing rapidly when spotted, it has also so far eluded all attempts to capture a specimen. It occasionally pops up near coastlines around the world.
What we covered:
Usually there is no space between the floor and the bottom, unless the person is deliberately leaning forward. So make sure that the foot is touching the bottom.
The upper and lower legs should be roughly the same length as each other.
