Free 3D Pose Maker & Online Drawing Mannequin

PoseMaker is a free 3D pose maker for artists, illustrators, animators and anyone who needs a quick figure reference. Instead of hunting through photos for the exact angle you have in mind, you pose a 3D mannequin yourself: click a body part, drag it into place, then orbit the camera until the view matches your sketch. Everything happens in the browser, so there is nothing to install and no account to create.

The pose maker is built around a plain wooden figure on purpose. A simple mannequin shows gesture, proportion and perspective without the distraction of clothing, hair or dramatic lighting. It is the same reason art schools still keep a shelf of wooden models, except this one bends at every joint, never falls over and fits in a browser tab.

Drawing the figure from imagination is hard because the body foreshortens in ways we rarely notice. An online drawing mannequin lets you check how a forearm overlaps the upper arm when it points at the viewer, how far a shoulder drops in a relaxed stance, or where the feet land in a low-angle shot. You stop guessing and start observing, which is the fastest way to improve.

A 3D mannequin also solves the reference problem. Stock photos rarely show the exact action, angle and lens you need for a comic panel, a character sheet or a storyboard. With a 3D pose maker you build that reference in a minute and rotate it as often as you like. Because the figure is generic, the result is yours to use in personal and commercial work.

Teachers use a pose maker to demonstrate weight and balance, game and animation artists block out key poses before modelling, and photographers plan shoots by showing a model the pose they have in mind. Writers and tabletop players use it to picture a scene. If you have ever wished a model could hold still for one more minute, this is that model.

You can go from the default standing figure to a finished reference in a few steps. The pose maker's controls work the same way with a mouse, a pen or a touch screen.

1. 1

   Pick a starting point

   Start from the neutral figure, open a pose from the library, or press Random for a surprise. Starting close to the pose you want saves time.

2. 2

   Select a body part

   Click or tap the upper arm, thigh, head or any other segment. The part is highlighted and its joint angles appear in the side panel.

3. 3

   Bend, tilt and twist

   Drag to rotate the part. Switch between Bend, Tilt and Twist with the 1, 2 and 3 keys, or type exact angles. Joint limits keep elbows and knees bending the way real ones do.

4. 4

   Move hands and feet directly

   Grab a hand or foot handle and the whole arm or leg follows, so you can plant a foot on a step or rest a hand on a hip without adjusting every joint.

5. 5

   Frame the camera

   Orbit, pan and zoom, or jump to front, side, back, three-quarter, high and low views. Change the focal length to exaggerate or flatten perspective.

6. 6

   Export or share

   Download a PNG with or without a background, an OpenPose skeleton for AI image tools, or the pose file itself. Copy a share link to send the exact pose to a friend or client.

Sometimes the pose already exists in a photo: a dancer you filmed, a sports shot, a selfie in the mirror. Photo to Pose detects the body in your image and copies the stance onto the 3D mannequin, including the direction of the head, torso, arms and legs. From there you can fix details, change the camera angle or mirror the pose, which a flat photo can never do.

Detection runs entirely in your browser. Your picture is not uploaded to our servers, so it is safe to use with private reference photos. A single photo can be ambiguous about depth, so after the import you can flip a limb forward or backward with one click.

Try Photo to Pose

Image generators follow a pose far better when they get a skeleton instead of a sentence. The pose maker exports the standard 18-point OpenPose image and JSON, ready for ControlNet in Stable Diffusion and similar tools. Set the pose, frame the shot, export the skeleton, and the generated character stands where you put the mannequin.

Poses in the library also come with ready-to-copy pose prompts for general use, Midjourney and Stable Diffusion, plus a negative prompt. Use them as they are or as a starting point for your own wording.

Open the OpenPose editor

A desk mannequin is a lovely object, but it has limits: stiff joints, a waist that barely turns, hands without fingers and a habit of toppling over when you lift a leg. A 3D mannequin keeps the honest, simplified forms of the wooden figure while removing those limits. It holds any balance, it can be viewed from below the floor and it never needs its screws tightened.

It also remembers. Save a pose, come back to it next week, duplicate it for a series of panels, or undo twenty steps when a gesture goes wrong. For many artists the physical mannequin stays on the desk as a thinking tool, while the online pose maker does the precise work.

See the wooden mannequin poses

• Start with the line of action. Set the hips and spine first; arms and legs read better when the torso already carries the movement.
• Shift the weight. Put most of the weight on one leg and tilt the hips and shoulders in opposite directions for a natural stance.
• Check the silhouette. If the pose is clear as a solid shape, it will read clearly in your drawing too.
• Try an unusual camera. A low or high angle with a wide lens turns an ordinary pose into a dramatic one.
• Practise gesture drawing. The Pose Generator shows a new random pose every 30 seconds to 5 minutes, ideal for timed sketching.

Open the Pose Generator