How I Used Figure Reference To Make My Drawing "The Return" - Self Reference for Artists

It's not always possible to get an art model for our practice or professional work. It's not always affordable (speaking as an art model, fair pay is important), or you might live in an area where there are no known models available, live in an inaccessible area, or do not have a studio space that would feel trust-worthy or comfortably accommodating for a model to visit. In any case, there is a FREE option commonly available as a back-up: yourself!

Even as both an art model and a freelance artist/illustrator, living in a fairly resourceful area, I predominantly use myself as figure reference. It's the cheapest option, but it also is the most efficient and immediate. If I need to see how a hand contorted into a certain position would work, anatomically, I just assume the pose I need, take a photo on my phone, and look back over it for a more objective perspective, all without having to track down a model and book a session, which takes up too much of my work flow.

If you have family or friends in easy reach, sometimes getting a partner or a friend to stand in for a quick photo in the right light can more effectively sort out confusion on the anatomy, especially if you need a certain sex or body-type, different from your own, to work from. My fiance has obliged for relevant male reference before, occasionally.

All this to say, regardless of your experience level, knowledge base, or professional clout, there is no shame in keeping things simple and falling back on the good old classic, self-made (or family/friends combo) reference.

Additionally, you don't need fancy equipment or a big show to get the necessary reference. If you HAVE the means and the resources to utilize beautiful photo shoot lighting, staging, cameras, filters, etc., please enjoy it! But for the rest of us who likely don't have this set up, I'm here to tell you, it's not required to get the job done. Some of the most famous and admirable pros in the business just have family take pictures of themselves in front of the living room window to get the right lighting or angle of the figure in space to work from.

In this post, I'm sharing an example of what my own process CAN includde, in order to get the pose and lighting needed. My process is not a set science, I work in a variety of ways depending on the project requirements. The following is how I solved the problem of figure reference for this particular piece, titled "The Return". {scroll for model imagery}

As a so-called semi-auto-biographical artist, meaning I use myself not only as a reference model, but as the story-teller in my own personal work, modeling for myself is additionally helpful. Because the perspective I am creating from is very much my own, I feel it would be presumptive of me, given the kind of stories I like to share, to impose my perspective onto a different persona. 

"The Return" is - generally - a mermaid image, and I clearly don't have a tail. But that part was simply drawn from imagination with the help of reference imagery of serpentine and aquatic bodies. (It's important to ground your imagery in a relatable reality, even in fantasy content, it is essential to suspending disbelief).

I got my costume on, I set a chair outside the back of our house, I asked my partner to take the pictures, because they needed to be at the right angles and I didn't have a stand that would allow for that, and we went outside.

Important things to mention for this otherwise simple process:

- I chose the time of day and the lighting very intentionally, which requires planning and some awareness of the weather. For my concept, I knew the light in the piece would be SUNSET light, so I wanted to shoot the reference with me actually IN the sunset light, if at all possible, even so far as to orienting myself so that the literal sun was setting at approximately the same point in the sky as the imagined sun in the soon-to-be drawing.

-TAKE MORE PICTURE REFERENCE THAN YOU THINK YOU"LL NEED! I ended up using a combination of two to three pictures from my shoot to draw from, but I made sure we took several dozen pictures, playing around with slightly different alterations in hand-posture, gesture, leaning angle, direction of my gaze, and ways of folding up my dress to create different fabric texture. Experimentation and variations on the theme of your concept is how we find the most natural or most dynamic poses, so don't rush it!

- I oriented my ordinary chair carefully, because where I sat to pose needed to create the correct lighting on my body that I had in my sketch for the drawing. It sounds obvious, but you will be surprised at how common art students and even seasoned pros miss getting this accurate in the photo shoot phase. If the lighting was wrong, the paint would be wrong.

- Here's a simple rule to follow - If the reference doesn't get the details of the *important* aspects of the drawing or painting correct, the subsequent drawing or painting will not turn out the way you hoped, so be sure to get what you NEED out of the reference, in the beginning. There's nothing worse than getting half-way into a drawing and realizing your lighting is off or your gesture doesn't help tell the story you're trying to tell.

- Key note here is *Important* aspects of the piece; as you can see in my photo, I'm sitting in front of my car, and there's a house behind me, and it's clearly a DIY style situation. Is that a problem? No. Because it is easily edited out or ignored. What was most important to me was making sure my position in relationship to the sun setting in the sky was accurate. The sunlight hitting the hair by my face and turning it red, was important. The light catching parts of my hands and chest was important. The angle of my torso to the camera (audience) was important. My legs were not terribly important, because I was going to replace them with a tail. But the way I was pulling my dress up over my legs was definitely important.

- What is important and what isn't are details you will need to work out for yourself in the sketching, conceptualizing stages of your project. Be clear on what matters to you in the story of the drawing or painting before you waste your time, or a friend's time, shooting reference.

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I hope this helps you in your own process development, whether you are working from my reference provided here or stuff you shoot yourself.

One of the key reasons why I started this patreon to offer my own take on figure reference for fellow creatives was because I understand that we can always use more reference resources! Diversity in model figures, themes, and poses are essential to practicing our skills in working from the figure, and in story-telling with the figure, and I plan on evolving the reference I provide here to meet that need as thoroughly as possible, moving forward.

I also want to encourage you to utilize your self in your own practice, because it can be once again, simply an efficient resource in your time-consuming practice as a visual creative, and diversifying the tools in your personal toolbox as an artist is important; it will help you to always have options with your work and flexibility in how you get your jobs done, in the long-run.

As always, please leave your comments below to continue the conversation, ask questions, or let me know if this was helpful or not!

New theme for November coming soon, as well as new nude reference for Tier 2 patrons!