Table of Contents
- Mannequin Figures Comparison Table
- Female Body-chan Mannequin Review
- Male Body-kun Mannequin Review
- №1 VS №2 Video Review
- How to Use Art Mannequin Models for Drawing
- How to Sketch with Body-Chan and Body-Kun Models
- Criteria Used for Evaluation
- Best Mannequin Figures Brands
- Frequently Asked Questions
Most Reliable Artist Mannequin — Top Rated 2023
Editor's pickFlexible Female Artist Mannequin Figure Body-chan Original by Bandai
Why it's better?
Excellent quality.TOP Mannequin Figures Comparison Chart
| name | Material | Height | ||
| 1. Flexible Female Artist Mannequin Figure Body-chan Original by Bandai | PVC (plastic) | 5.9" | |
 | 2. Flexible Male Artist Mannequin Action Figure Body-kun Original by Bandai | PVC (plastic) | 5.9" | |
 | 3. Body Kun Male and Female Action Figure Models | PVC (plastic) | 11.81" | |
 | 4. Poseable Ball-Jointed Figma Archetype Next Male or Female Action Figures (Gray Colored) | PVC (plastic) | 5.5" | |
 | 5. Plastic Poseable Ball-Jointed Male or Female Doll (Action Figure) with a stand (Peach Colored) | PVC (plastic) | 5.5" | |
 | 6. Synthetic Action Figure Drawing Model Figure Kit | PVC (plastic) | 5.9" | |
 | 7. Peach/Pale Orange Body Chan Yabuki Kentaro Figure [Bandai] | PVC (plastic) | 5.5" | |
 | 8. Grey Tamashii Nations Body-Chan Takarai Yabuki Kentaro Figure [Bandai] | PVC (plastic) | 5.7" | |
 | 9. Silicone Female Drawing Model (Poseable Body Mannequin) | silicone + stainless steel skeleton | 12" | |
 | 10. Other Art Mannequin Wooden Models (Hands, Horse, etc.) | wood, plastic | - |
1. The Best Flexible Female Artist Mannequin Figure Body-chan Original by Bandai
- Quality95%
- Features95%
Last Updated November 28, 2023
2. The Best Flexible Male Artist Mannequin Action Figure Body-kun Original by Bandai
- Quality90%
- Features95%
Last Updated November 28, 2023
3. The Best Body Kun Male and Female Action Figure Models
- Quality85%
- Features90%
Last Updated November 28, 2023
4. The Best Poseable Ball-Jointed Figma Archetype Next Male or Female Action Figures (Gray Colored)
- Quality90%
- Features90%
Last Updated November 28, 2023
5. The Best Plastic Poseable Ball-Jointed Male or Female Doll (Action Figure) with a stand (Peach Colored)
- Quality85%
- Features85%
Last Updated November 28, 2023
6. The Best Synthetic Action Figure Drawing Model Figure Kit
- Quality80%
- Features85%
Last Updated November 28, 2023
7. The Best Peach/Pale Orange Body Chan Yabuki Kentaro Figure [Bandai]
- Quality80%
- Features80%
Last Updated November 28, 2023
8. The Best Grey Tamashii Nations Body-Chan Takarai Yabuki Kentaro Figure [Bandai]
- Quality85%
- Features80%
Last Updated November 28, 2023
9. The Best Silicone Female Drawing Model (Poseable Body Mannequin)
- Quality80%
- Features80%
Last Updated November 28, 2023
10. The Best Other Art Mannequin Wooden Models (Hands, Horse, etc.)
- Quality80%
- Features80%
Last Updated November 28, 2023
Choose a Model of Artist Mannequin:
Best Mannequin Figures Brands and Manufacturers
The market is dominated by some manufacturers such as: Bandai. All of them offer a variety models of best drawing mannequins (artist action figures).Criteria Used for Evaluation. Artist Mannequin Pros and Cons
Overall, there are the most important things to consider when purchasing best drawing mannequins (artist action figures). Pay attention to the following unique features:- product's quality;
- price;
- etc.
Flexible Female Artist Mannequin Figure Body-chan Original by Bandai
Obviously, these figures are responsible for helping you for pose, but this booklet sort of indicates that they're magically going to make you into an amazing anime artist as well. We'll see. By the looks of this guy here, basically it's telling us that you can attach all the different accessories and hand poses. They fit into the case and the case is also a stand. Okay, so ladies first, let's have a play with this one, shall we? On the back here, is where we've got all of the attached extras. Oh, plus the clear stand, as well. And if we take off this top layer, we can actually dive into this character behind it. Now in terms of the size of this, it's a little bit smaller than I did expect, but it does also mean that you can kind of reference these very casually, very close to you, whilst you may be working on your desk. The range of articulation on these is actually quite wide, which I'm very pleased about. It's got a sort of a two section cup and ball socket going on in the major joint, so that you can kind of squeeze things up and move all the way around, a little bit further, like so. You can get like a good kneeling out and also there's a little bit of flex over the toes as well so you can get kind of push joints for a character springing up instead of just a flat-footed design. It feels relatively stiff. I do quite like the movement on here, but I'm also, because it's quite small, a tiny bit paranoid about breaking these things, if I push it too hard. The arms swing all the way up into reverse, but I don't know if you can have your character, have their arms facing forward very aggressively, or at least not for this one. Anyway, not too bad for that and she can stand up under her own steam. So we're going to stay there and we're going to take a quick look at these accessories. Now, it is worth saying that... oh that's really good, actually. Even though they're really small, having all of these different hand gestures and stuff is probably going to come in pretty useful. And what I was saying those fit, and you can get these body configures in black and in skin tone as well, but I think there's something along the lines of the black figures probably won't show up very well if you're looking at the shadows or getting a feel for where the muscle structure and highlights should be, whereas the skin-toned ones probably won't be so useful for clearly seeing the highlights as well. So that's why I've gone for the kind of standard gray model. Now you've got flat hand, open hand, gripping stuff, fist shape, all of that looks pretty useful. This is our carry case/stand box to actually fit everything in, so I'm going to just pop this together as well. Oh my God, I'm having flashbacks to airplanes models. Okay, so that all slots together without too many problems, and it is again quite stiff, which is probably the point, because if it wasn't a very stiff set up, none of your characters would really stay in a pose that you're trying to put them in. Except, on this one here, this lady character is a little bit loose in... just for one shoulder socket joint. Now it's not causing any problems at the moment, but you do get the feeling that if you're not careful, it might just kind of become a very loose dead thing. And I am somewhat concerned about just pulling off this hand about breaking it, but no, that does come off absolutely fine. But again, because of the size and the nature of a plastic, I'm actually terrified, but I'm just going to snap something if I get a little bit too rough. All right, so let's swap this one out for a hand if it looks like it's designed... woo, careful... the hand that looks like it's designed to hold an item. If I can just get you to... go on you bugger, squeeze back on. There we go. Lovely. And even though that hand was a little bit of a challenge to get in, the moment it stuck on, it does feel nice and firmly in place. Oh, brilliant. And in terms of the accessories, you've got a laptop computer in two sections here, a tablet or newspaper or what ever other reference type you need that to be. A handgun. Looks like it's very loosely based on a Glock and a Catana or Nodaci of some sort. Let's take the gun. Now you do have to kind of coerce it into this hand shape. It might just be a touch large for this character. But again, in terms of using it as a reference or an interesting angle where you want to see what this character is like, they're sitting in a chair, firing a gun from a seated position. You can just look around it from all different angles to get a feel of what you might want to draw. And for such a tiny piece of plastic, this laptop opens and closes relatively well for something that you wouldn't expect too much detail on. Looks like everything stores neatly in these bases, as well, which is good, because otherwise all of these tiny pieces would get lost over time. And that all fits into the base fairly nicely for our character just to hang out on top, like so. So, not too bad, so far, for this one. I do like the way that everything fits in the base for when you're just going to whack this on the shelf when it's not being used.Flexible Male Artist Mannequin Action Figure Body-kun Original by Bandai
So I'm expecting a really similar setup for the male character, but this one is larger and all of the pieces and accessories are sized up a little bit. So I'm just wondering if this is a touch more robust. Good as new. Yeah, so straight off of the bat simply because the size of this is ever so slightly larger, it's allowed a bit more material around all of the joints so it does feel a little bit more robust. It feels like I could probably play with this and use it a lot and it's much less likely to break or snap than a female version, which is obviously much more slender and light. But it's got a very good rough example of the main muscle group lines that you've got over the thighs, the abdomen, the chest, and also just splits out between your shoulder muscles. And as you can see, very loosely indicates the face and most importantly of all I'd suggest, probably for most artists, especially when it comes to be manga or anime techniques, is helping you understand where that nose is going to be from different angles for the character. Now this guy as well I think has a little bit more freedom around for joints of the shoulders and the knee sockets come out very nicely when it comes to getting into good poses and leaps. You've got the adjustable toes again, which is great. And again this gray set comes with all of these accessories, basic weapons and daily items and these hands are a good step larger and yeah, it comes with a fairly good range. You've got like the peace sign, you've got a pointing finger, you've got open splayed fingers, which is really good. And two different types of loosely grasping as well as flat hand, open hand and fists. And again, getting one of the hands off is not a problem, but getting the next hand onto this little ball joint is a little bit of a precarious action. There we go. And if we put this hand combination on him and put it over his face like this, it looks like he's kind of chanting deeply for a political rally and also having a bit of a metaphysical quandary on the nature of existence. Oh God, it's true. Democracy simply doesn't work. But socialism is simply a dream that goes against human nature itself. What am I to do? What? I mean what young boy, he didn't use his Action Men figures for political discourse? Now when it comes to these accessories, they do all kind of come off of the little spruce very easily with the exception of the lid to the laptop. That's quite a heavy seal that it's got across here. So you do want to be careful or ideally use some sort of modeling clippers to get out. Now because this just comes in basic white packaging, I think it's fair to say once you've got these guys out of their containers, you're never going to use any of that stuff again and you're mostly going to stick to these. And so again, I do immediately like the idea that you can just sit there now and imagine your character from this particular pose, but maybe you're doing a character reference sheet for art and you want to show what they're going to be look like from a different angle because you're submitting a design which needs to show off all of their costume and so on. I think this is a really good starting point.Body-chan vs Body-kun Action Figures Review
I'm going to be unboxing and testing out some really expensive drawing models. I paid so much money for these. Now, we're going to find out if it was worth it. So through the glorious power of the Internet, I have purchased these two drawing models in gray. One is like a feminine kind of small body type and one is kind of like a slightly larger masculine body type.Colors of Drawing Mannequin Bodies
Generally, these things come into three colors. You can buy them in like pitch black, peach or gray. I feel like on the pitch black figurines, the highlights are really easy to see and on the really like peach ones, the shadows are easy to see. Whereas the gray is like a solid middle ground. Granted, that could just be falling on personal preference, but I think that the gray ones are gonna work the best for me. You'll have to pick the ones that work the best for you and your budget because the gray ones are more expensive. I've had those like ridiculous like wooden figurines that you can get for like $5. Those are good for getting like a very basic understanding of human form. These ones are so much more in depth. These ones have a much more accurate depiction of like, muscle curvature. They have like individual hands, they're way more posable and I'm very excited to play with them. I have wanted these things for so long. There are some versions of these that seem to be a bit more geared towards the American style of drawing, but these ones are a bit more anime-esque, which if I'm honest, I kind of prefer, which is another reason why I got these. They also have tons of exchangeable parts and body stands and I'm just really excited to play with these. Okay, let's go ahead and open these. Okay, so here is the BODY Chan and the BODY Kun set in gray. Gray color version by Bandai.Female Artist Mannequin Figure Body-chan Original by Bandai
So let's go ahead and start by opening the Body Chan set. So on the back of the box they actually give you a brief explanation of the instructions. You pose your figurine and then take a photo of it and then you use that photo to trace over and get a reference and then you can use that to make the rest of your art. Simple, no? Look at all these epic poses. That's just great. And then in this corner it kind of shows you essentially what it comes with. So this is the basic assembly information. It tells you how to put everything together. And then these are some more complex instructions in Japanese. The pictures are very useful, though. I think that the gray figurine actually just comes with more stuff and that might be why it's more expensive than the other ones because it looks like the pink only comes with the hands and not the stand or any of the props. It also comes with this sheet of lined grid paper. When I was watching reviews for this, I saw a bunch of people who didn't completely know what this was for and it's actually just so that you can see the space. This is supposed to make it easier for drawing area around your figurines. If you plan on drawing furniture or anything around your character, this will give you a solid idea of how to draw those foundation lines. Now, I actually did open this one box when I first got it, because I was just too curious and I had a look at all of the props. So, the set actually came with a Samurai sword, a tablet, a handgun, a cell phone, a flip phone, a pencil and a laptop. Also, the laptop is actually flexible, which is really cool. First thing we've got to do is get this all out of the plastic. It looks like, if I'm reading this correctly, the samurai sword should be able to fit across these little slits here and then these should all just fit in these little compartments. I don't understand. Okay, I initially had it backwards, but I figured it out, although I'm pretty sure I put the tablet in the wrong compartment, but that is okay. We can move that cell phone there. Awesome. Just put all of that stuff over here. Sweet. Based on the instructions, I think I was able to assemble it correctly so that everything fits within the stand, which is extra cool. Okay, so now let's have a look at the actual stand. So this is the main stand and this connects to this base plate through this tiny hole that's right there. And then this is what you'll be attaching the figurine to. If I'm going to be honest, this is the part that took me a solid second to figure out. The main purpose of this piece is so that your figurine has something to rest on if you need to hold it up in the air. However, it also comes with this replacement piece, so these two little arms that are meant to wrap around the figurine's waist can be attached to either one of these frames. You can just press these arms into place and then you'll have a different grip to hold your figurine with. I also want to point out with this stand, you don't actually have to use this grip at all because the model can actually be attached directly to the holder, which is really cool. According to these instructions, you can also pop out these little parts here and move this arm to other parts around this little platform. It's very stable.Male Artist Mannequin Action Figure Body-kun Original by Bandai
Okay, so now let's have a look at the Body Kun. Ooh, this one looks a bit more sturdy. It looks like this one also comes with a set of instructions, but for a slightly different method. This is what the props initially look like before they've been removed from the casing. I actually got all these pieces out by just lightly twisting them. They actually came away from the plastic casing fairly easily, so the laptop actually does come in two parts and has to be assembled. There we go. It looks like this one is much more flexible than the other one, which I think is just down to like, machining differences. This one opens and closes much farther. I think with this one, I'm actually going to take a second and I'm going to try and replace the hand. One thing about these is that the plastic is extremely soft, so when I'm trying to do anything forceful with it, I'm a little bit afraid that I'm going to break it. The sheer volume of flexibility on these is amazing. I have pretty small womanly hands and these things fit perfectly in the palm of my hand, which for me is kind of nice because it means they won't take up that much desk space. This could just be the manufacturing, but I feel like the male model is a bit more stiff and rigid, whereas the female model is pretty loose and wobbly. That could also just be because this model is a bit smaller. One of the most impressive things in my eyes about these models is the range at which they can bend their knees. Ball-jointed dolls are fantastic at doing this. One of my favorite features about the masculine figurine is that his arms can actually go forward and back. This is a really cool range of movement that I've never seen in another figurine. Let me be excited about my stuff. Yeah, he's holding himself up right now. That's so cool. One thing that I was kind of disappointed about was the fact that the female figurine cannot lift her arms straight up in the air, whereas the masculine figurine can, this could just be a defect of these specific models, but given the way that the feminine shoulders are put together, I feel like that just might be a limited range of motion for this model. I feel like overall the masculine figurine has a bit wider range of motion and it also feels a bit more sturdy. Also, every now and then I see tiny little plastic defects like the legs aren't exactly the same. This one sticks out a little bit on this side. The feminine figure's shoulders aren't completely even. There's tons of little things about these models that aren't perfect, but they are much better than some of the other resources I have access to. I'm also really enjoying the feet on these models. The flexible toes are great. They're perfect for modeling walking. So from here we're going to pose them, take a couple of pictures and what we can sketch. So I took a couple pictures and then I found one that I liked and I pulled it into Photoshop just to see if I could get kind of like some basic line art. I mainly wanted to see how easily these photos would transfer into like actual workable lines. I really wasn't like investing my heart or soul into this drawing. I was just kind of scribbling. When I was drawing this. I was also working with my Wacom Intuos drawing tablet, which is not an onscreen drawing tablet, so it's not necessarily the best for line art. I mainly use this for coloring. I feel like these figurines have a lot of potential, but I also feel like I need to make a bit more artwork with them before I can decide if they are actually a very good tool, so I may come back to these in the future. I think overall I'm very happy with this purchase, especially given that I was able to find some slightly cheaper ones. They're not perfect. I can admit that, but they are way better than the really common wooden ones that you see all the time. So my audience and I have been working on making a bunch of original characters and I plan on putting them into comics at some point. And I feel like these are going to be extremely helpful as references when I make those comics. Overall, I'm happy with it. I'm excited to see where this adventure goes and I'll keep you guys updated. On our article today, we are talking about poseable mannequin models, and how you can use them to help your drawing. One problem they have is that they don't hold their poses very well all thу time that you need. So what can we do about that? Well, art action models are really reasonably cheap these days, and they're very, very useful just to have around for something to draw and to put it into a quick pose. But the more you draw them, the more you will get this model transferred into your brain as a little model inside your head from which you can draw anything you like. Here, let me show you how. And one of the things I've been doing is talking about mannequins for drawing and how to use them, and how you can do all these kinds of poses, but it probably wouldn't be able to do these poses with your poseable mannequin.
You have to do them in your imagination. And you can then make mannequins' bodies thinner, and you can make them fatter.
You could even turn them into cats and dogs. Once you got mannequin body model inside your imagination, you can get them moving, and then put clothes on them and then turn them into characters.
With a mannequin, we have a head, and then a neck, so you want a little ball for that. And a body, it's going to be triangular. They're going to be slightly different shapes for male and female. And then you want a ball there, which is kind of the waist. And then the pelvis. And you can have a little ball on the shoulders, as you really kind of would on a human being. They're kind of a shoulder joint. And then basically you've got kind of tubes and balls, and then the same with the legs. And you can make them thicker, and thinner, and longer, and shorter depending on quite what do you want to do.
And if you get this inside your head, it will make drawing characters from your head an awful lot easier.
Drawing somebody slightly from above, we can imagine that the head is going to be a bit like that. So we want a ball joint underneath there, and then the body is going to be a kind of a parallel box, a parallelogram kind of box with a ball joint on there. Now if they're running, they're going to have their arm going backward, and that would be achieved there with the ball on the end. A line coming down there, and I think they're probably going to have their, holding their fists actually. So you can sort of start playing with it a bit like that.
Now this will be achieved, I'm going to have it come down there a bit more like that I think. Now we need the waist. And I'm going to bring, I have kind of a bend in the body there, so maybe they're doing more of a long jumpy kind of thing. They're reaching out. And I'm going to have them reaching out much further like that. So maybe they're doing the hurdles. Maybe that's what it is.
And we'll have a ball at the end, and then they're going to be reaching there. And then on this leg, they will be going thataway. I haven't got a mannequin body in front of me, but I have got this model in my head. And that is the secret of it. And I think the only way to get this model in your head is just to do draw lots of drawing, which is probably the secret to most things. And then we can maybe put the hurdle in that he's jumping over, and we're kind of building up a story at the same time.
Can maybe do a kind of a sitting down pose, sitting down, looking up at the sky. Again, get this, learn how to do this kind of sort of spheres, so that you know where they're facing.
And they'll be the neck, and again, the mannequin's body. And I think in fact the body will be more, I'm going to have it more that way. And then we'll have, this is going to be a very strange angle, more like that. And we'll hit the arms coming back there and then forward. So we're kind of sitting down on the ground looking at the sky. And that again will be there. Repetition is how you learn. Just keep drawing, doodling, get one of these and just doodle it, doodle it until every thing is completely in your brain. And you can do it in your sleep and then you'll be able to draw bodies from wherever you like. Whatever angle you like.
And then you can put ears on them, and then you can put some hair on them, and then you can start putting clothes on them. Which may be a collar will come around like that, a jacket, something like that. You know, the jacket will be there.
And if you've got poseable mannequin body model like this inside your head of what a human being looks like, it makes it so much easier just to draw what's in your head, because you kind of know how to do it. And mannequin models can help you.
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I am in love with the Bandai brand and its products. They make great, durable models for drawing. I have a couple and they inspire me to pull out my pencils every day and do some sketching. It makes sit so much easier when you have something to directly look at that is 3D.