The Anatomy of a Pose - A Central Hub for Tips and Tricks to Better Your Figures

Collector Freaks Forum

Help Support Collector Freaks Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Joined
Oct 1, 2014
Messages
6,060
Reaction score
1,101
Welcome to the Anatomy of a pose, a place for newcomers and veterans alike to share their tips, tricks, and techniques to making their figures come to life.

Only together can we fight boring shelves full of straight armed mannequins!

In here I'd like to see all of you post pictures and discuss the whys, hows, and logic behind your pose. What's your secret to those shots that 110% sell the fact that these are the most realistic figures on the market? Post that figure that's been giving you difficulty and get suggestions on what to tweak!

Inspired by a great discussion in the QMX Trek thread with very sound commentary, I felt the need to finally bring a thread to life that I'd thought about for a good while.

Typically things stay the way I pose them once I've opened them up. That being said I'll usually tweak that over a few weeks until it's perfect.

Major reposes occur when I goof and ruin the one I had when futzing or moving a figure. Once you break that perfect balance point, it's all over. It'll never be the same. You HAVE to start from scratch to ensure a stable pose that looks good and avoids toppling.

That being said, posing is the most underappreciated art in this hobby. I don't understand how so many people can buy a $200, or even a $20 figure, and just place it on a shelf, arms outstretched. These things look like little humans, why make them appear to be a doll? You've already paid the entry price for the realism, no reason to stop when displaying the figure.

And I'm not knocking museum poses. Proper museum poses capture the nuance and attitude of a character in a reserved state. You don't have to be executing high kicks to "properly pose". Case in point: Hot Toys Deadpool.

deadpool-hottoys-12192015.jpg


Every pose should tell a story. It should answer the question that comes to mind, or prompt one. Your audience (that includes you) should look at a figure and think:
"Tony's armor is damaged, so he popped his visor and is aiming down his foe"
"What's Tyrion contemplating? Whores? Power? Money?"
"What base did Barney Ross just clear?"
"Wolverine looks tense, standing at the ready; he's about to go berserk, isn't he?"
"Oh look, The Doctor just arrived, and he's making a show of it."
"But you haven't tried MY product. Now. Say. My. Name."

Never should the audience solely say "that's a cool figure" and move on to something else. The cool factor should simply be the introduction to further investigation. EVERYONE knows when they were successful: someone gets stuck at your display cabinet and starts to grin, eyes glued to each piece, zipping back and forth to satiate another glance. You've all had this happen before when showing your collection to a guest. You know when you pull it off.

It's like having a proper musical arrangement fill your movie trailer, not some cheap two-bit cross promotion with a rapper. The former sells an idea. The latter makes for a forgettable, generic "action movie 32" preview.

Movie companies do this too. Look at character shot posters and apply this same concept. Which ones catch your attention?

Compare this:

star-wars-rey.jpg


To this:

PH98u4pmtVd7bi_1_l.jpg


It's a big difference here, but I think it conveys the point. Poster 1 delivers "Oh, that's the girl from the new Star Wars movie". Poster 2 however offers exposition, thought. There's character to it. It makes me ask WHY as opposed to just stirring film recognition. Even if you took out the background of Poster 2, there is still an aura of wonder around the attitude of Rey, not just an image.

Those are my general thoughts. For now. More to come, hopefully from some of the experts on here!
 
This is an excellent thread. :lecture

Subscribed. I'll try to contribute as time allows. Great examples above -- particularly Jack Sparrow. That's just perfect!
 
A "few" of my favourites...
B479CD6B-FB96-449F-9744-3078F37734F2.jpg
B0F425B8-12FE-4E4C-8CB7-516B408435F1.jpg
4DEAAFD4-D1CB-4954-8659-93C916E7A533.jpg
5FB7B108-B650-4741-B116-1B5960951694.jpg
5B597C38-88AA-4D87-8FB0-404FBECC0B01.jpg
28029FC2-7021-4CDF-809B-67B712AD0646.jpg
4EBB8ADB-D1FF-4A36-8215-8A2C765715CA.jpg
0A0B9D93-96C1-4DDB-A912-30044EBD7996.jpg
45E18041-29F0-4ABC-9972-520ACFCF2E4E.jpg
B3213629-BE64-48D7-865C-7D581836CB0B.jpeg
50321EBF-ABBA-473E-82BD-7250AEED0D6E.jpg
6D8CB03E-A8EC-4BC2-9E3D-FDC9D967D008.jpg
254B2C6D-03BD-4BD6-8ADC-C9AFE9787AE1.jpg
5C0435AA-D819-4B8E-87CA-6A28A5050BF0.jpg
Achieving that killer pose is one of the most satisfying aspects of this hobby for me :yess:
 
Last edited:
Great idea for a thread, and some nice contributions already.
I'll try to find some time to post some of my personal favourites next weekend.

Maybe I'm overthinking it, but I'd love for everybody to include a short description per photo/pose what they were going for.
 
Damn, and I’ve just spent half and hour typing away in the Star Trek thread!

Anyway, pics here are amazing!


Enviado desde mi iPhone utilizando Tapatalk
 
YES! Great thread! For me, sometimes it’s a certain pose from a scene. Other times it’s an “attitude”. I want to be able to hear lines of dialogue or a piece of music in my head when I look at the figures on the shelf. For ROTJ Luke, I wanted that defiant “I am a Jedi...” feel. When he was first announced, I had this kind of pose in mind and it was so satisfying to finally get him.
6cf3c5176d657f74133b397b5be7d8c2.jpg



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
I love the idea of this thread. Thanks so much for starting it. Not only does it give a forum to “show off” our own work but also give a lot of ideas to others (such as me). Trying to get that just right look can be very difficult and seeing what others have done can really help. A lot of my figs are in storage right now, so may be a while before I can share my favorite poses. However, here is a sampler of one I really liked setting up.
8BE9C268-BC9F-4099-A18F-250A432CA2E5.jpg
 
A request requires personal contribution all the same!
dc1b5660b6efe368da658dfe571db8b6.jpg

Love this! I think these types of poses are the hardest but the best when pulled off like this! I usually don’t go for extreme action poses in fear of ruining figures or just to save room so I usually go for subtle expressive ones that are in the realm of what the character would do as well.
8e45a915af088c922518df0fbcd3ab3e.jpg
50a683d9379aba61fb8fbec8b459e036.jpg
6ec9f29a344fa74eeb905944ddd3eb6f.jpg
0e01392fe69b350dc421a83ce6399c53.jpg
853df183d1c090f4216114becb4c49c0.jpg



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Great thread DioramaMaker! Here's a few of mine.

One thing I nearly always do with female figures is angle the hips out to one side, to emphasize their femininity a bit more.

And I've also discovered that a pose can look really cool in hand but come across way too subtle on camera, so I often have to go back and exaggerate it a bit more to make it show up better in pics.

And there are times, like with my Thor and Hela, where I pose one figure based on what the other is doing, even if they're not actually interacting.

And of course there are some figures, like Star-Lord, where you just have to put him in a more showoffy pose. :D

IMG_20190604_083531.jpg

IMG_20190604_083712.jpg

IMG_20190604_083635.jpg

IMG_20190604_090207.jpg

IMG_20190604_084247.jpg
 
Back
Top