Deep Squat Pose Reference
Deep Squat, a squatting pose reference with heels flat, knees pushed out over turned-out toes, hips sunk low and forearms draped across the knees.
- Kneeling Poses
- squatting
- squat
- crouch
- low pose
- street
Free for personal and commercial use (CC0). License details
How to draw the Deep Squat pose
Balance decides everything in a full squat. With the hips sunk almost to the heels, the centre of mass sits only about 60 cm off the floor and behind the toes, so the torso must lean forward to keep it over the feet. Draw the back vertical and the figure would roll onto its seat. The feet are wider than the hips and turned out, and the knees follow the toes outward, opening a space between the thighs for the leaning chest. The forearms rest across the knees with the wrists loose and the hands hanging, which tells the viewer this is a rest, not an effort.
Treat it as a foreshortening exercise. From the front the thighs point almost straight at you, so they become short, wide ovals overlapping the shins; resist the urge to draw their full length. The side view, figure facing left, is the honest one: it shows the fold at the hip, the calf compressed against the back of the thigh, and how far forward the shoulders travel. Use the back view to check that the heels stay down and the knees track out beyond hip width. The high angle hides most of the legs behind the arms and head, while the low angle pushes the knees forward into big, dominant shapes.
Knees caving inward make the squat look strained and leave the forearms nowhere to rest. Lifted heels change it into a crouch on the balls of the feet, a different posture with a different centre of gravity. And keep the head up, looking ahead rather than at the floor.
It fits street photography mood boards, campers around a fire you add later, workers on a break or travellers waiting at a roadside. In the editor, raise the heels and narrow the feet to compare the flat-footed squat with a sprinter's crouch, or lift one hand off the knee to hold an imagined cup.
Deep Squat pose prompt
Copy a prompt for your AI image generator. Pair it with the OpenPose skeleton in ControlNet so the generated character matches this exact pose.
General prompt
Full-body view of a person in a deep squat with heels flat on the ground, feet wider than the hips and turned out, knees pushed outward, hips low near the heels, torso leaning forward, forearms resting on the knees with hands hanging, looking ahead, plain background.
Midjourney
full body person in deep squat, heels down, feet turned out, knees wide, hips low, torso leaning forward, forearms resting on knees, hands hanging relaxed, street style, three-quarter view, plain background --ar 2:3 --style raw
Stable Diffusion
1person, full body, squatting, deep squat, heels down, feet apart, knees apart, forearms on knees, hands hanging, leaning forward, low pose, looking ahead, relaxed, casual, three-quarter view, simple background
Negative prompt
knees collapsing inward, heels lifted, upright torso, sitting on ground, tiptoes, falling backward, kneeling, extra legs, bad anatomy, deformed knees, extra fingers, cropped feet, blurry
OpenPose skeleton for ControlNet
Load the PNG into a ControlNet OpenPose unit (preprocessor: none), or import the JSON into an OpenPose editor.
Free to use (CC0)
The pose images on this page are released under CC0 1.0 (public domain dedication). Use them for drawing practice, commercial illustration, reference sheets or AI image generation; no attribution is required. A credit to PoseMaker is appreciated but optional.
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Upload it to Photo to Pose. We detect the pose in your browser and put it on the mannequin, ready to adjust.