If you take a day trip to an art museum and peruse through the Classical Art section, you will find many human figures painted or sculpted in complex poses. How did these artists know exactly what a human looks like in that specific pose? Well, they had models. Of course, the models couldn't hold particularly difficult poses for hours and hours, but seeing how a human body looks – how the muscles tense, how the skin folds, and how the light falls – even for a few minutes, instead of relying on memory or imagination, can help bring an artpiece to life!
It's a little easier nowadays to find references for drawings – the internet is certainly a vast resource! But sometimes, you need a really specific pose to base your drawing off of. In that case, you can snap a picture yourself! Goosebump's iconic illustrator, Tim Jacobus, did just that in order to craft the perfect paintings that would scare the living daylights out of every kid at the book fair in the 90s.
A reference picture doesn't need to be copied exactly! It is simply used as inspiration or to ensure that proportions are correct. That's why the finished product often looks quite different.
I wonder if there's a photo out there of the chicken the artist used for reference as well…
