I've talked a lot about hand placement, where to place them, how to place them, which part of the hand is considered more attractive etc etc. I haven't talked much about arms.

Arms can also pose a bit of a problem. If you look at the pictures below, the first picture has the arms placed at the side of the body. There are a few problems with this. Firstly, it looks a bit dull; the arms are just hanging and the hands are idle – making for an awkward, lazy looking pose. The arms at the side also creates a boxy silhouette which is far from ideal. All curves are obscured and the placement of my arms adds width to my hips. 

The second picture is better; the left hand has been given something to do by hooking the thumb into a pocket. You can see some negative space between the arm and the trunk which defines outline of the the waist and hips and creates a triangle - a pleasing shape for the eye to follow (see previous blog: building poses with triangles. The right hand has also kept busy by playing with a necklace. However, the placement of the right arm merges into the trunk which widens the appearance of the trunk and and obscures curves on this side - not ideal. 

The third picture shows how I fixed this. By bringing the right arm inside the body's frame, you can now see the outline of the trunk  (highlighted in purple). Now you can see curves on both sides of the trunk and it makes for a much more pleasing silhouette.
 

And finally the fourth picture shows how you can create even more curves for the eye to follow simply by altering arm placement - also creating another triangle. 

And that's a quick guide to posing your arms. For more ideas on posing arms, have a look at my posing videos.