This page provides links to several web sites that provide ideas for nude modeling poses.

Photos above reprinted courtesy of On Air Video, Inc., which maintains the copyright to these photos.

Life models will find this page a great reference for coming up with poses for upcoming figure drawing sessions.

Figurative artists will find this page a great reference if they want to practice life drawing between sessions. However, two dimensional pictures can never replace drawing from a live model.

See also ArtModelTips.com pages showing thousands of examples of nude modeling poses, using a variety of models:

Female standing poses * Female seated poses * Female crouching poses * Female recumbent poses * Male standing poses * Male seated poses * Male crouching poses * Male recumbent poses * Multiple model poses * Mid-air poses * Clothed/Nude side by side

Web sites showing model poses

Sites with videos of actual life drawing sessions

• Croquis Cafe – provides videos of different 1, 2, 3, and 5 minute poses each week. Beginning in Feburary 2014, these are videos of actual life drawing sessions with nude models recorded in real time.
• Croquis Cafe 360 (YouTube) – Nude models in artistic poses are videotaped on a stand that is rotated to show the model from every angle.

Sites simulating a life drawing session

• New Masters Academy – A site providing virtual on line life drawing sessions.
• Art Models 360 – A new website providing 360 views of artist models of diverse body types
• The Drawing Script – A site that generates a virtual online drawing session, with adjustable timed poses (includes nude, dressed, animals, and hands)
• PixeyLovely.com – A neat site that generates a virtual online drawing session, complete with timed gesture poses
• Quickposes.com – another site that generates a virtual online drawing session with timed or untimed poses
• LifeDrawingPoses.com – provides a simulated gesture drawing session
• LifeDrawing.me – A random life model pose generator (generates ideas but without pictures)

Sites providing life drawing poses

• Art Model Tips – Provides thousands of examples of poses, using a wide variety of life models
• Life Drawing Photos – Provides several poses for life models
• The Society of Art Models has arranged with Live Model Books to host a page with many life model pose ideas organized by type of pose.
• Virtual Pose – Provides several master collections of model poses.
• Art Figure Models – Site containing photos of models in poses intended to be references for figurative artists
• “Unstructured Figure Drawing Session” in Fredericksburg – Provides examples of figure sketches from each of their their weekly sessions
• The Ultimate Guide to Good Figure Drawing Reference – Good discussion from Freshdesigner.com of what constitutes good reference photos for figure drawing artists. Also provides Good Reference Gallery with several sample poses.

Sites showing classical nude paintings

• La Conchiglia Di Venere: The Nude Art in History – Provides a huge selection of classical nude paintings
• Great Art – The Classic Male Nude – Provides several classic male poses
• 1st-art-gallery.com – shows hundreds of pages of classical nude art, group by female nude and male nude
• Museum Syndicate – Shows paintings and sculture from museums around the world
• Web Gallery of Art – Search “nude male” and “nude female”
• Antique Nude Art – Facebook page

Sites showing a variety of classical and contemporary life paintings

• Pure Art Space > Nude paintings – shows several nude art paintings, both classical and contemporary
• Dances With Colors – Provides extensive listing of female nude fine art paintings, both classical and contemporary
• WikiPaintings Visual Art Encyclopedia, keyword “nude” – Provides thousands of examples of nude art
• Amsterdam Art Gallery – Displays hundreds of nude paintings for sale, divided by male and female

Sites showing a variety of paintings and pictures of figure modeling sessions

• Wikimedia Commons, Category: Nudes in Art – Click on any subcategory and scroll to the bottom of the page for examples (Examples: Nude females in art, figure modeling)

Huge searchable indexes of life model poses

• Human-anatomy-for-artist.com – Allows you to search from thousands of poses, filtered by several criteria
• Live Model Books Pose Tool – showing extensive selection of model poses with several models
• Live Model Books – includes low resolution pdfs of the “Art Model” book series of art model poses
• Posemaniacs –  provides a variety of poses for nude sketching

Other sites that include many life drawing poses

• Figure Drawings and Portraits – a loosely organized site that is dotted with lots of pose pictures
• Artist Model Links – another site sprinkled with lots of pose pictures for ideas
• trobinson41 (Flickr) – shows many sketches by a talented figurative artist in Virginia

 

Practical tips for maintaining long poses

• Tips on Posing for Life Models – great tips from an experienced life model on how long you can comfortaably hold specific types of long poses
• Chris’s life modeling poses – several examples of long poses and how long they can be held comfortably by an experienced life model (who is also open to providing advice to new life models)
• Holding still – blog entry by nude model Brooke Lynn on holding longer poses

Effective google searches

• classical nude paintings
• classical nude paintings female
• classical nude paintings male
• charcoal figure drawing – produces gorgeous drawings
• charcoal figure drawing female
• charcoal figure drawing male
• figure drawing poses
• figure drawing poses female
• figure drawing gesture poses male

iPhone apps showing model poses

• Posemaniacs iPhone app –  provides a variety of random poses for nude sketching. Works differently than the web version (below). Available in a free and paid version.