A few weeks ago I won a prize giveaway of Stephen Silver’s new sketching app, Posebook. Today during my warm up I finally had a chance to give it a test run.
For those who haven’t heard, Posebook is a pair of new apps (Male and Female) for iPhone/iPad/Android/Kindle created to help artists develop their drawing skills. Each features a large collection of photos from professional costumed models in over 2,000 full-body poses for sketching, plus hands and close-up facial expressions. There’s also 6 instructional videos from app creator Stephen Silver, himself an award-winning character designer, as well as 25 sketches from other top character designers in the animation biz. That’s a lot of goodies for $9.99 each.
There are no nude models, although some of the costumes and poses in the Female Posebook fall into the “sexy cheesecake” category. Being a dad with daughters has made me more sensitive to issues of female modesty. Combine that with the warnings Jesus gave about the whole lust thing (see Matthew 5:27-30) and it means as much as I’d like to unfortunately I can’t quite bring myself to recommend the Female version of Posebook. Which is too bad – otherwise it’s a terrific app. If only there was a way to delete some of those images, I’d be happy to give it the same big “thumbs up” that I give to the Male Posebook (iTunes link).
Both apps are wonderfully designed, full of many expressive poses that are well lit and full of character. In short, sketching from Posebook is just plain fun.