The Surprising Power of Acting Out Your Characters

Bringing characters to life through shooting your own reference photos

There’s this odd idea among beginning artists—that you should be able to draw everything from memory. I’m not sure where it comes from, but as a graphic novelist, I use reference photos all the time for inspiration and to make the world I create through my art more accurate and dynamic.

While Google Image Search is great for general reference, it’s less helpful when it comes to specific character poses, body language, and facial expressions. If I can’t easily visualize a pose, I’ll act it out myself, take a photo, and draw from that.

It’s faster, more accurate, and honestly more fun than scouring the internet for the exact pose my character needs. And if I need a prop, I’m not precious about it—I just grab whatever’s around that vaguely resembles the prop. Here, for example, I’m holding a candlestick in place of the phone Jordan Baker uses in The Great Gatsby: A Graphic Novel Adaptation.

I usually just use the camera on my computer and occasionally on my phone. But a mirror could work too.

And it doesn’t really matter to me if I look like the character or not. Here I am acting out Owl Eyes, the drunken bespectacled man in a car crash in Gatsby:

Acting things out also helps me understand the character better. Being a graphic novelist is kind of like being the whole cast of a film—you get to play every part, through your drawings.

When I physically step into a character’s posture or gesture, I get a feel for how they move, how they hold themselves. And that makes the drawing more alive.

And if I can’t quite get the pose myself, I ask my long suffering unpaid intern (a.k.a. my spouse) to act out some parts. Here he is posing as Myrtle Wilson’s dead body:

After taking all these reference photos, my phone and computer are full of ridiculous photos. Sometimes I wonder what a stranger would think if they stumbled across my camera roll. Hopefully they’d at least be impressed by my range!

Let me know in the comments:

Do you use reference photos in your work? Or what other types of research do you use to bring your creative project to life?

Also, you can get my graphic novel adaptation of Gatsby wherever books are sold (and for only $9.99 on that website that rhymes with Schwamazon):

Leif love

Leif’s adjusting to the “heat” (above 60 degrees F) so he needed a break on a recent run near the Weisman Art Museum.

Take care and keep creating!

-Katharine

P.S. A reminder that my graphic novel adaptation of Tuck Everlasting is available for pre-order! Pre-orders make a big difference in a book’s success, so if you’re planning to get a copy, I’d be so grateful if you ordered it now.