Body-Kun Pose of the Day

My figures are a slightly older model, so I’m not sure if things have changed.  But if you’re looking at the same versions as mine, where orange costs a bit less than gray -

-Both are light enough that you can easily see the shadows.  I think they’re equally usable in this regard.  If you’re concerned about colored light and/or how skin tones react to shadow, neither one of them will give you a realistic effect, and looking at real people is still your best bet.

-Gray-Kun is noticeably better quality than Orange-kun.  He has sturdier joints with stronger material.  Over time as you use them, the joints do tend to get looser (especially if your orange figure likes to lift your gray figure XD), and the hand attachments don’t attach as securely.  So if you can afford the more expensive gray, that’s the one I’d recommend.

Yes, feel free!  My only request is that people don’t repost my actual photos to other places without link/credit.  But you’re welcome to use the poses themselves for personal or commercial work.  Credit is nice, but not required in that case.

Hey! I’m considering buying a body-kun, but before I go for it, I’d like to know how well he can take to the poses I illustrated below (highlighted areas being of particular interest to me; to what degree can body-kun slouch? to what degree can his arms and legs bend?)

If you can help me with this, I would immensely appreciate it haha. And please feel free to let me know if this is the wrong place to ask.

Thanks!

PS. great blog, awesome cause :)

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Admin: Alas, you’ve found most of body-kun’s weaknesses.  Here’s a rundown.

This is the full range of motion body-kun can achieve in regards to a “curling over the knees” pose.  It’s what I consider the greatest limitation.

This is as close as he can get to achieving the forearms together pose in your second sketch.  (Sorry bout the gun; he was... in the middle of something.)

I think he does the forward slouch pretty well, but again, this is about as far as he can bend at the waist and ribs.

“Orange-kun, we’re flying!”

“I call Photoshop.”

Mid-flight/angel-like pose request for @chaoswithaface .  (edited to remove the stands.)  Sorry for the wait!

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Want to use these photos as drawing reference?  Go for it!

I drew my sunshine boys Hunk and Lance using one of your poses and I just wanted you to see :3

I tried some fanart, I love this blog

Thank you for 5000 followers!!! <3 <3 <3

“Who said you could read my book, Orange-kun?”

“How do you know it’s your book?”

“It’s made of my flesh.”

Seated reading pose request for @drunkcyclonus ! (kind of; Gray-kun wasn’t quite flexible enough...)

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Want to use these photos as drawing reference?  Go for it!

“Ah, someone who understands!”

Yes, basically I bought them for myself a few months ago because I had some difficult action scenes coming up in my webcomic and thought they’d be helpful.  Aerial and worm’s eye action shots are my weakness.  But for every pose I used for reference, I ended up with like six poses that were just stupid and funny, and I needed to post them *somewhere,* right?

(fyi, I’d give my comic a moderate R rating for violence/sexual content/language/drug use, so tread carefully if you plan to click that link.)

It wasn’t originally my plan to make a side blog for the figures, and I definitely never expected it to actually be useful to people!  So that turned out well.  I'm not so good at telling other artists how awesome they are, so this is an easy way for me to give something back and try to balance out all the generosity I’ve received.

Have I been using them, and have they been helpful?  Yes and yes!  But I’m much more casual with them when I use them for my own purposes.  I don’t make clean photos for myself the way I do for this blog.  I usually don’t take photos at all, and I just kind of approximate the pose and set them on my upturned tea cup.  My preference is Memory>From Life>Photo Reference>Body-kun, but they’re all valid tools.

Here’s a photo I did take.  It’s Orange-kun riding on a Larabar in an attempt to match a motorcycle I’d already designed and drafted. (“Lemon Bar” flavor.  Highly recommended, but a little acidic. ^_^)  I start with a rough sketch to lay everything out, but that layer is turned off in this picture.

"Orange-kun, can we get a new mattress?”

“If I can sleep on a piece of bristol board on top of a metal file cabinet, so can you.”

Sleeping/relaxing pose request for @gearwe !

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Want to use these photos as drawing reference?  Go for it!

“Orange-kun, what are you doing on eBay?”

“Seeing how much gray body-kun sells for.”

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Want to use these photos as drawing reference?  Go for it!

Oh dude, you wouldn’t believe how bad my setup is. ^_^;  I’m hoping maybe someday if I can manage the funds, I can put together a better setup with more flexible lighting options, a turntable, props, and maybe even a better camera.

Right now, I’m using a folded piece of bristol board as a base and backdrop, a basic floor lamp with two daylight CFL bulbs, and the camera in my iPhone 5s.  I position or tilt the floor lamp until I get roughly the results I want.  It’s a pretty low budget operation.

But what I lack in a professional setup and photography skills, I make up for in Photoshop skills! :D  I’m an illustrator/comic person, and I do art in Photoshop for a living.  I use the Curves tool to balance out the lights and darks and remove color casts.  If you don’t have Photoshop, most art programs these days have some sort of equivalent.

Here’s a before and after:

In this case, I also edited out some props and composited a second photo of Orange-kun’s tape-covered foot.  I always note in my post whether or not something’s been edited, so people can know what’s actually doable with these figures and what isn’t.

So I hope that answers your question!  If anyone wants more info on how to use Photoshop curves, let me know.