How to Avoid Flat Drawings: Bring Your Art to Life with PoseMyArt
Have you ever finished a drawing and felt like it was “stuck on a sticker sheet”? Even with great anatomy, a character can lack the weight and volume needed to feel real.
Fixing flat drawings is all about shifting your mindset from simple 2D shapes to 3D volumes. Today, we’re looking at pro tips to add depth to your art and how PoseMyArt can help you master the third dimension.
Think in Volumes, Not Outlines
Many artists fall into the trap of focusing only on the “sticker” outline of a character. This makes everything look like a flat paper cutout.
To fix this, try to visualize the body as a collection of cylinders, spheres, and boxes. These shapes are filled with muscle and mass. When you draw a limb, think about how the skin and clothing wrap around that 3D volume rather than just tracing the edge.
How PoseMyArt helps: If you’re struggling to see the volume, switch to the app’s Blocky Bot or Stick Bot models. These simplify the human form into basic geometric shapes, making it way easier to see the 3D structure before you add details.
Next time you see an epic anime pose or a cool reference online, take a screenshot and try to recreate it in PoseMyArt. Personally, I do this all the time; my phone gallery is absolutely full of screenshots of poses and scenes that I want to recreate.
Breaking these references down into basic 3D blocks in the app trains your brain to understand the “hidden” structure of the body. Over time, this practice will make it much easier for you to draw complex 3D poses without blindly relying or leaning so heavily on a reference.
Leverage Field of View (FOV) for Perspective
Perspective is the ultimate tool for adding depth, but it can be intimidating to draw from scratch. Objects should feel like they are occupying space, receding toward a vanishing point.
A common mistake is drawing a character with “flat” proportions, even when they are reaching toward the viewer. Exaggerating the perspective can make a scene feel much more immersive and “deep.”
How PoseMyArt helps: Use the Field of View (FOV) Slider in the camera tools to push your perspective limits. Cranking up the FOV creates a wide-angle effect that makes foreground elements pop, giving you a perfect 3D guide for your sketch.
Don’t be afraid to try tweaking angles and zoom distances to get that perfect reference. For this flying reference, here’s a comparison of what the model would look like when you slide that Field of View a little bit to the right.
This works especially well for dramatic action shots, like a punch or kick flying directly toward the lens. You can even use this to visualize a weapon or projectile that’s about to collide with the protagonist, making the danger feel immediate.
Master Foreshortening by Overlapping
Foreshortening is often called the “final boss” of drawing because it forces you to draw what you see, not what you know. It requires you to compress limbs as they point toward the camera.
The secret to believable foreshortening is overlapping-drawing one shape partially on top of another. This tells the viewer’s brain exactly which part of the body is closer to them.
How PoseMyArt helps: Load any of the thousands of Premade Poses available on the app and rotate the camera until a limb is pointing directly at you. You can see exactly how the forearm overlaps the bicep, removing all the guesswork from your 3D perspective.
Here are some popular poses that you see used for different drawings. You can observe that overlapping limbs or props give viewers a sense of what is nearer to the camera.
You can also use the Field of View slider to exaggerate foreshortening. Here’s a simple stretching pose, with the regular Field of View on the left, and how the reference looks with the FOV slider adjusted a bit to the right. The hands feel closer to the camera and enhances the stretching pose.
Even after years of taking paid commissions, I still find myself getting tripped up by aggressive foreshortening. I’ve learned that it’s much faster to verify a tricky angle in PoseMyArt than to spend hours “fixing” a limb that just looks like a short stub. Using a 3D model as a quick sanity check has saved me from plenty of frustration during tight deadlines.
Use Lighting to Carve Out Form
Flat drawings often suffer from “flat lighting,” where the shading doesn’t follow the contours of the body. Proper shading should act like a map of the character’s volume.
Shadows should wrap around limbs to emphasize their roundness or boxiness. This “form shading” is what gives a character a sense of weight and physical presence.
How PoseMyArt helps: The app’s Directional Light Feature allows you to move light sources anywhere in the 3D space. You can observe how shadows wrap around a realistic or anime model, giving you a clear reference for where your highlights and core shadows should go.
You can also rotate, scale, and increase and decrease the intensity of the light source to suit your needs- if you need softer or more intense lighting and shadows.
To activate shadows on the PoseMyArt app, make sure to enable the Shadows slider by clicking the gear icon in the top right corner. Just keep in mind that activating shadows can be a bit heavy on performance, so it might slow the app down slightly depending on your device.
Build an Environment with 3D Props
A character standing in a void will almost always look flatter than one interacting with their surroundings. Adding environmental context helps establish a “ground plane.”
When a character sits on a chair or leans against a wall, it creates multiple points of contact. This “sandwiches” the character into the scene, making the depth feel tangible.
How PoseMyArt helps: Don’t draw your character in a vacuum; use the app’s Massive Prop Library. Add furniture, weapons, or floor planes to your scene to see exactly how your character occupies space and interacts with the 3D world.
Here’s a sample from a Premade Scene. A fairy sitting on a tree stump. The various props- the rocks, mushrooms, grass, and roots of the stump all help to visually establish everything. By tweaking the zoom and the Field of View slider, you can create different points of view using the same scene.
One way to establish your ground plane is by making use of the app’s floor grid. The floor grid helps establish where your characters and props are, ensuring they don’t accidentally sink into the ground based on your perspective. You can toggle the Ground and Floor Grid features on or off in the Settings menu by clicking the gear icon on the upper right side of the window.
Final Thoughts
Adding depth is about more than just “getting better at drawing”-it’s about training your brain to see in 3D. By focusing on volume and perspective, you can turn a flat sketch into a living scene.
To recap, remember these key points:
- Think in 3D blocks to give your characters weight and structure.
- Push your FOV for dramatic perspective that makes your art pop.
- Trust overlapping shapes to conquer the “final boss” of foreshortening.
- Use dynamic lighting to carve out forms and give your art a physical presence.
- Ground your scene with props and the floor grid to define the ground plane.
As someone who has worked on countless commissions over the years, I can tell you that these 3D tools aren’t just for beginners-they are a pro’s best friend for saving time and avoiding mistakes. Don’t be afraid to fill your gallery with reference screenshots and experiment with these features!
Want to make your drawings more dynamic too? We got you covered. Check out our article Stop Drawing Statues: The Ultimate Guide to Mastering Dynamic Poses. If you’re eager to try the app out yourself, head over to the PoseMyArt App today, set up a 3D scene, and start building depth like a pro!
