posing ballet feet

LaPartita

Making good ballet poses is hard, and I give a LOT of credit to all the amazing PAs who do such a great job creating dance poses for classical ballet. Everything needs to be placed just so - even the positioning of the fingertips can be critical. I've been seeing a lot of lovely arm and head positioning with G8 characters. But is there any way we could focus more on the feet?

Anyone who has ever tried to dance in pointe shoes will tell you two things - 1) yes, it does hurt as much as it looks like it would; and 2) pointe shoes are hard - as in, they are physically very tough. One of the first things you do when you get a new pair of shoes is break them in. Different dancers have different methods - whacking the shoes against a railing, scraping them with a sharp knife (like a box cutter) - matches also feature prominently. The reason for this is because while the shoe (which is made of canvas, satin, and glue) needs to retain enough structural integery to support the ENTIRE WEIGHT of a person standing on the very tops of two or three toes, it also needs to be flexible enough to allow the dancer's foot to bend far enough that they can point their feet. And ballet dancers don't just point their toes; in order to get your weight balenced on that small of a surface, you need to be able to bend your foot nearly in half. Look at the ballerina's feet in the picture below - see how far her foot has to bend in order for her to balance? And note the shape of the shoes as well - unlike normal shoes, toe shoes end in a hard, flat oval surface. 

caravelle

Thanks for the good explanation, LaPartita. I've often been irritated by the dancers' foot position on some promo pics, and wondered if the artists have ever seen a classical ballet.

This is not meant to be a petty gripe, but the whole picture just looks 'wrong' if the things you mention are not taken into account.

mwokee

You can Google BALLET POSES and get charts and charts and charts of industry standard poses. There are some ballet pose sets here at Daz but this type of thread has come up before regarding all kinds of products that make an attempt to emulate real life be it poses or an object. Which begs the question if PAs have ever heard of Google let alone know how to use it. I really do need to learn how to create my own 3D products.

AllenArt

Are PA's that do poses not using the metatarsals in the figure's feet? Because they do bend in the middle. You can bend them even more if you turn off limits.

Gordig

AllenArt said:

Are PA's that do poses not using the metatarsals in the figure's feet? Because they do bend in the middle. You can bend them even more if you turn off limits.

That would be ironic, as every high heels pose I've seen does use them.