Rolled Back, Legs UpPose Reference
Camera angles
Rolled Back, Legs Up shows the wooden figure curled onto its upper back, hips off the floor and both legs swung over the chest in a wide V.
Tags: lyingon backlegs uprolled backstretching
How to draw the Rolled Back, Legs Up pose
three-quarter view 
side view 
back view 
high-angle view
The roll shifts the support from the pelvis to the shoulders and the back of the head. The spine curls in one continuous curve, the hips rise off the ground, and the thighs fold down over the chest so that the knees hover above the face. From there the lower legs, only slightly bent, reach up and back past the head with the feet apart, making a V that opens toward the ceiling. Both hands hold the backs of the thighs just short of the knees, and the arms act as braces that stop the legs from dropping further over.
Look at the side angle first. It shows the rounded back as a rocker touching the floor near the shoulder blades, the thighs angled across the torso, and the shins tilting back beyond the line of the head. That tilt is easy to lose: if the legs end up vertical, the figure is simply lying with legs raised and the rolled weight disappears. The front view foreshortens the pelvis into a rounded block with the head peeking out underneath, while the back view looks up the V of the legs from behind the head. The low angle reveals the clearance under the lifted hips.
More on angles and common mistakes
Typical mistakes include leaving the pelvis on the floor, locking the knees completely straight, or sliding the hands to the ankles, which would pull the head up. Keep the head and shoulders down and bend the elbows only enough to reach the thighs. The rolled back legs up pose sits halfway between lying flat and a full shoulder inversion, so it works for stretching sequences, rolling movements in animation keys, gymnastics warm-ups and studies of a compressed, rounded torso. The floor and any mat are left for you to draw.
Edit this pose by bringing the feet together and lowering them until the toes nearly reach the floor behind the head; the figure then moves toward a plow, and stepping between the two gives you a short movement sequence.
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.
Rolled Back, Legs Up 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
A person rolls back onto their upper back on a plain floor, hips lifted and spine curled, thighs folded over the chest. The slightly bent legs reach up and back over the head in a wide V, both hands holding the backs of the thighs near the knees; head and shoulders stay down.
Midjourney
full body person rolled back on upper back, hips lifted off floor, curled spine, thighs over chest, slightly bent legs apart in V reaching back over head, hands holding backs of thighs, head and shoulders on floor, side view, plain background --ar 3:2 --style raw
Stable Diffusion
1person, full body, lying on back, rolled back, legs up, legs apart, knees slightly bent, hips raised, curled spine, hands on thighs, shoulders on floor, head on floor, stretching, flexibility, side view, plain background, simple background
Negative prompt
hips on floor, legs vertical, legs together, locked knees, hands on ankles, head lifted, feet touching floor, extra legs, fused thighs, missing hands, twisted spine, cropped feet, nsfw
OpenPose skeleton for ControlNet
Load the PNG into a ControlNet OpenPose unit (preprocessor: none), or import the JSON into an OpenPose editor.
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