Figure: Posture, balance and weight

Here are a mix of both open and closed poses using pastels on coloured paper. I limited myself to using two colours (as well as the paper) so that it didn't become too messy, the paper was used as a mid-tone. It is clear where the light source is and it really helped to pick out the various highlights and shadows over the body due to the raised and lowered muscles in some poses. Due to the poses and helped by the lighting; you can see what body parts the model is using to balance himself because using particular muscles will make them stand out more. As well as this, the feet are directed in a way that show what parts of the body weight is being applied to in order to balance.
There is some evidence of foreshortening in parts of this, in particular the forearms of the blue and purple examples which help to identify the direction the model is facing.