01317 photos · $6
Male model with an athletic build
317 shots of an athletic model: classic academic setups and poses in motion. about $6, full-resolution JPG, lifetime access.
References
Photo references for drawing
Shot with live models: figure, portrait, hands and feet. One set is one subject and several angles, so you can work a series instead of hunting down every shot again.
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The packs
4 on sale01
02370 photos · $3
Starter reference pack for artists
370 shots for systematic practice: figure, portrait, hands and feet in one archive. about $3, full-resolution JPG, no watermarks, lifetime access.
03309 photos · $12
Female figure — academic poses
309 shots of a female model: academic setups for figure and portrait with the emphasis on plastic form. about $12, JPG without watermarks, lifetime access.
04216 photos · $3
Male figure — dynamic poses
216 shots in motion: a wind-up, a twist, the weight on one leg. Pose references for sketches and gesture drawing. about $3, JPG without watermarks.
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Why you need reference
Drawing from your head works once your head already holds the real thing. Until then it is observation that does the job: look at the form, check the proportions, notice how light sits on volume.
A random picture off a search engine is bad for that: compression, someone else’s retouching and an angle that explains nothing. These shots were taken for drawing — even light, readable form, a series of angles on one model.
Walkthroughs on working from reference live in the video lesson archive, and the mini-courses are in their own section.
About reference
The packs are built around single topics. Starter — 370 shots for about $3: figure, portraits, hands and feet in one archive, so you have something to work from on any topic. Athletic Male Build — 317 shots for about $6, from academic poses to movement. Female Figure, Academic Poses — 309 shots for about $12, weighted toward gesture and long drawing. Male Figure, Dynamic Poses — 216 shots for about $3, short gesture and expression. These are pose references shot for drawing, not a collection of pretty photographs.
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What separates these from a picture off a search engine is that they were shot for drawing. A random photo is usually taken wide-angle and up close: the hand nearest the camera balloons, and you end up drawing lens distortion instead of a person. Add someone else’s retouching, which wipes out the joints, and compression, which eats the halftones in the shadows. The packs give you even light instead — the terminator reads, you can see where the form turns away from the light and where the reflected light starts. The resolution lets you zoom into a hand and make out how the metacarpal bones meet.
The value of a pack is in the series, not in any single shot. Take one pose and work through it from two-minute sketches to a forty-minute drawing: the first five attempts go on mass and the tilt of the pelvis, after that form starts to appear. Neighboring angles of the same model work as a check on your sense of volume — if you have understood how the shoulder is built, you can predict what it looks like in the next shot. That is how you build the memory of form you later draw from without any reference.
Working from photos usually breaks the same way. People draw along the contour, tracing the silhouette, and get a flat sticker: the photograph has already squeezed volume into a plane, and the drawing squeezes it once more. Value gets copied in patches, repeating accidental highlights instead of the big forms. And the weight almost always gets ignored: the photo shows the weight on one leg, but in the drawing the pelvis stays horizontal and the figure hangs in the air. The cure is the same order you’d use from life — axes and weight first, then the masses, and only then the details.
The packs don’t replace classes: they are material, not teaching. The lessons on how to build from a reference and where a reference lies sit in the video archive, and in Club the reference packs come with the subscription. The rights are simple: drawings and paintings made from these photographs can be published and sold, but the files themselves can’t be resold or posted publicly. The download link opens in your account right after payment and stays there for good.
FAQ
What is a reference pack?
A set of photographs of one model or one topic: several angles, one lighting setup, high resolution. A set like that lets you draw a series and compare angles against each other, instead of doing one random study from a picture you found online.
Which pack should I get first?
Starter at about $3, if you want to cover several topics at once: it has figure, portraits, and hands and feet. If what you need is the figure for long drawing, take the academic female poses; for short sketches, the dynamic male ones.
Can I draw from them for sale?
Yes. Work made from these photographs can be published, exhibited and sold, including on commission. What you can’t do is resell the files themselves, hand them around or post them publicly.
What form do the files come in?
As an archive of high-resolution shots. The download link appears in your account right after payment and stays there for good, so you can download the pack again from any device.
Are there any free references?
There are no separate free packs. For Club subscribers all of them open along with the rest of the studio’s material — then you don’t need to buy them separately.