A question for those who know how to ride a horse... bareback.
AnotherUserName
Posts: 2,727
Hi everyone,
Im trying to pose a rider on a horse and she is riding bareback. Im wondering how a rider would try to position themselves on the horse. Where do they sit, where do they position their feet, anything relevant. The horse is also jumping and at a full gallop. Gulp! Sounds dangerous...
Oh, also, im assuming that riding bareback requires the rider to hold onto the horses main. Is there a spot on the main that is considered comfortable (comfortable for the horse) for the rider to hold?
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Try doing a google search for Bareback rider and look at the images: https://www.google.com/search?q=bareback+rider&biw=1536&bih=749&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjo_brs3cXSAhVq2IMKHbqBB8YQsAQIJQ#imgdii=YmoWpxivEYJ84M:&imgrc=bJsTviL0OLBkYM:
Would these poses help? http://www.daz3d.com/victoria-4-equestrian
My sister says you want your legs right behind the shoulder blades, and holding on is for wimps lol.
Is this person riding bareback on purpose? Is the horse running away with them? Because yeah, a running, jumping halterless horse with a bareback rider that doesn't fall off...
I do think there's a product from Jepe that features a woman riding a horse bareback (and wrapped in a sheet) that you might look at for some ideas. I don't claim it's the least bit realistic, but as a fantasy thing.... http://www.daz3d.com/equine-dreams here it is. And it does make a good point: anybody skilled enough to stay on a galloping horse bareback can probably do so just with their legs, no hands holding mane required.
Legs as in the knees are positioned behind the shoulder blades or are you trying to grip the horse with the feet as far forward as possible?
She is escaping some yet to be determined action sequence. She's a pro rider so she would know how to do this.
LOL! There is a natural slope on the horse's back right behind the should blades that riders tend to naturally fit into when riding. As for controling the horse, most of the control riders who ride bareback is all in the thighs and even those on saddles use their thighs to control the horse. Most riders do not hold on. Even those who use saddle and reins, aren't really holding on. They use the reins to steer, but they hold the reins fairly loosely. Strangling the reins is not good for the rider and horse. Tension and tight reins make horses very nervous of their riders and their skills. There is a lot of trust between a horse and rider if they have been together for a long time. It's a really special type of relationship that you won't find with any other animal, I don't think.
This is actually the pose set that im using, http://www.daz3d.com/da-horse-and-rider-poses . The forward horse pose in the promo shot is actually the pose that im using. Yah ill check out google eventually, I just wanted to be social and talk some peeps
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Hi Knittingmommy. Where are the feet positioned then? Are they just wrapped underneath the belly as far as they can go???
It's personal choice. I just let my legs dangle a little but if you're used to riding in a saddle, you tend to sit like it's there anyway. So basically, you sit where the horse's back kind of sways. For galloping, I'd find a picture of somebody galloping in a saddle and do something similar. To be honest, I never galloped bareback, because riding bareback was pretty uncomfortable. (Or my horse had a knobby spine.) And there really isn't any hanging on. You're just balancing. It's kind of symbiotic - you move together.
I have her feet sort of tucked back against the hip. I had figured that that might be a suitable spot for grasping(?) but if its all done with the thighs I guess that would be wrong. I suppose the rider would get knocked around as well from all the hip motion. Ill take a quick pic to show my positioning.
OK, heres my rider position. It sounds like her feet are too far back... Thoughts?
Yeah, too far back. I would bring them down more almost under her knees so they are mostly just dangling down. I would probably move her seat up a little bit more on the horse's back behind he shoulders, too. I've never jumped a horse while bareback but I've seen some who do. While they do slide back a little bit they don't slide back quite that much. You'd be very surprised by just how well a good bareback rider can sit a horse. That was never me. I liked slow sedate walks when I rode bareback.
Hey, talkiing to peeps is good! :)
Heres the adjusted pose. I really wish I new how to ride a horse. An ex-girlfriend tried to teach me once, she was a trainer. I had no clue what was going on, lol. Needless to say, it didnt take.
Think about how she's communicating with the horse. She's telling it what to do with her legs. And if it's jumping she's had to guide it in the jump. I've heard the phrase 'throw your heart over the jump' as how one starts a jump with a horse because the horse is probably relying on the rider to tell them it can be done. The word is 'rider' but she's more of a partner. In the render you most recently posted she looks very passive.
It's getting better. As Dreamfarmer mentions it looks a little passive. Your rider is a little too loose. The lower legs are about in the right position. Try rotating the thighs inwards just a little so the knees look like they are pushing into the ribs just a little bit. I would also see if you can rotate the hips a little bit more to make the buttocks a little more firmly planted on the horse if possible. That's harder to do with 3D models. Of course, adjusting the hip means you might have to readjust the legs again so do that first if you do it and then move down from there. Always start with the hips if you are making those kinds of changes and work out from there.
This is how I did my horse rider doing bare back
Done with these http://www.daz3d.com/trotting-action
Ok, thanks for all the information everyone. Ill make adjustments and post a new pick tomorrow. Are her hands placed in the right position? The neck seemed to be a reasonable position at least that is what I assumed.
I've ridden a horse bareback and it was the 1st time I ever rode a house that wasn't a walking horse for children at the state fare. You sit in the same place you'd sit if a saddle where there, that's how saddles are designed, and you grip the flanks with your legs tight as you can. Whoops! No! Don't do that! Too late as a former quarter horse formerly used for racing bolts off in a circle in a non-existant race with me holding on for dear life.
Lol! Same thing happened to my brother when we were like 13 years old or something like that. Just took off with him down the road, same situation, first time on a horse.
Yup, me too. Read a lot of horse books as a kid, went to horse camp, almost lost my riding privileges the second day because I accidentally told the half-thoroughbred to run. That was with a saddle, though. I also have fond memories of climbing on the neighbor's horse bareback via the fence. But that fellow basically just ignored me (which is probably why the owner had given me permission to 'ride' him). He was happy to take my treats and not step on me when I flailed on him and that was about all I was getting. Good times.
I noticed studying pictures of free riding jumpers that some of them do rise up when the horse is in the air. They all had halters though, which I thought was interesting.
Here's a picture of a bareback jumper. The seat is very forward. Having grown up on horseback riding English hunt seat (toes in, heels down), what I notice about most pictures is that the rider is just too far back on the horse's back. A natural seat is very forward. Also jumpers lean forward and rise off the back of the horse; they also work hard to not hit the horse's back during any of the take-off, jump, or landing. And, yes, it's a lot of leg muscles, especially so when bareback. Beginners will hang onto the mane, but it is bad form. A good rider will never hold the mane or pull on the reins for support; they won't need to due to the tremendous leg strength. They will keep their legs under them and remain far forward. Jumping bareback the legs will move somewhat, but not as far as you would expect; otherwise, they'd lose their leg/thigh grip.
That must take an incredible amount of skill! Good pic. Im a little behind this morning... Going to make pose adjustments shortly and then ill update with a new pic.
Here is my updated pose. Two pics. Rider pose 3 is taken from an angle (closer) that is similar to what the finished camera angle will be. Rider pose 4 is a side shot. I made these changes based off of firewardens's pic. I think ive almost got it? I've got two choices to consider with her hand placement. The first is that I think I can justify her hand placement on the horses neck. Its going to be an action shot and im pretty sure there is going to be gunfire of some sort involved. The placement of her hands on the horses neck would provide as smaller profile to shoot at. My second consideration is that while I think I can get away with the current arm/hand position, it looks a little vanilla to me and I think the shot would be better overall if her left arm was back off the horses neck, clutching something in her left hand... Choices, choices.
Wow, she appears to be riding bareback, side-saddle, and covering all her bits with that floaty sheet. That's for people with seriously elite riding skillz!
@AnotherUserName, You got me curious so I googled further for a better picture. Your pose is much better, although I think the feet are still a little too far back. The lady in the picture I posted is probably leaning more forward than normal because she's got her arms to the sides. I was surprised to find the Wikipedia had an article on bareback riding and a nice picture of another bareback jumper, with her arms in a more normal position in front of her.
Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bareback_riding
Brings back good memories reading all this. I'm sure these days my mom would have been turned in to CPS for all the days she let us wander unattended out in the woods and meadows, mostly riding bareback, sometimes with all our tack. Just us kids, a sack lunch, and a summer's day with our horses, who might be included in our dip in a local stream or lake.
Helps if I attach the file.
Thanks firewarden. Your new pic really shows a good foot position, thatll help quite a bit. Im off of daz for today but ill post the new pose as soon as I can get to it, tomorrow morning most likely.
I know what you mean about the memories. Although we didnt have horses, we were always wandering about national forest by ourselves. Exploring, etc. Good times.
Hiding a Horse bareback is bad for the horse. People's big butt bones are hammering the backbone of the horse. It is unconfortable. That is why we invented saddles it spreads out the weight and wagons or better yet buggies takes this stress off their backs. In real life if you have to >> Use a saddle blanket and make sure you pad your big bottom with memory foam so you don't harm the horse. Oh for the people who don't believe me read this >>>http://www.equinews.com/article/bareback-riding-it-comfortable-your-horse.
Ok, I respect that. Its just an action scene though. Its supposed to come across as being one of those instances where the heroine was trying to escape some bad guys, came across a horse with no tackle and rode it to safety. Totally Hollywood.
I would say a sample of seven horses is not statistically significant against thousands of years of folks riding, especially with the caveats given. I'd want to see a much bigger study over a passage of years. If you're riding correctly, you're not "hammering the backbone." And if you were, your rear end would give out at the same rate, so it's a self-limiting factor. Not to mention, most folks ride bareback occasionally and for shorter distances than what they would ride with a saddle.
Having had a decent amount of experience with bareback riding, I've never seen a horse act as if it were uncomfortable. If anything, they seem to enjoy it more than being saddled. It's usually a more casual style of riding and an experience that promotes a bond between rider and horse.
And it's not the backbone, but the muscles they are talking about. This is a highly inaccurate study, major caveats being "The relatively small sample of seven horses also did not explore differences by horse breed or conformation; body condition of horse or rider; or rider’s skill level (combination of big-strided horse and unskilled rider might add up to force being spread over a considerably larger area of the horse’s back)."
And here are the new adjustments. I hope the pose look ok 'cause I think im gonna leave them like that and move on to the rest of the render. What does everyone think? OK at least? Maybe her foot needs to be a little more parallel to the ground?