I want to ask you about the best references for drawing poses

[ALI_RAYAN]

What are the best references for drawing complex poses?

[moontokkym]

Photos.
Always photos.
If not real life.

[justincarbunkle]

Yourself. Take a picture of yourself doing the exact pose you want.

Otherwise, find images that are close enough to what you want. People diss on those wooden art dolls, but I do use mine occasionally to help me think + consider the anatomy and perspective of a complicated pose.

[jwabeasley]

Stock photo sites are usually excellent, especially if you're still figuring out how you want a pose to go.

The best is a family member or close friend whose build/personality is similar to the character you want to draw. Photos of yourself are almost as good but camera angles get tricky.

Last up is a 3D pose program (I like DAZ) but it will give you poor results if you aren't already proficient with pose fundamentals and 3D rendering, or if over-relied upon.

[Lensing]

I second the yourself advice. Some poses are really hard to find and never 100% like you imagine
them. I have a couple of poses packs but I mostly use them for anatomy studies and figure drawing
training and not because I like the actual pose. There are some good figure drawing mannequin
apps which can help with shading like https://magicposer.com

[BoomerZ]

I would agree with life drawing. This is foundational and will allow you to draw without ref after a while. I don't recommend tracing 3D models ever. Almost all webcomics are traced now and it's boring. That is why all characters have the same body type. The more you know the basics and rules, the more you will not need the ref.

[feuersichel]

I can recomend the website, quickposes.com
Very nice for nice little studysession.