What happens when daily sketching stops being just practice—and turns into a full-on test of endurance? For Grafit Studio’s founder Lev Boyko, it meant rethinking how far art, anatomy, and the human body can be pushed.

It started with a challenge: a year of daily figure drawing, side by side with fellow artist Vladimir. Not once a week, not when convenient—every single day. With live models. Sometimes twice a day, sometimes three. Miss a session? The penalty was clear: double sketches the next day.

“Almost every time I sat down to draw, I wanted to quit. Eight out of ten days I’d think: why am I torturing myself again? But then—you sit down, and you draw. Because the model is here, your partner is here, and there’s no backing out.” — Lev Boyko

The challenge pushed them through fatigue, bad moods, sickness, and distraction. And as the months went on, Lev noticed something: models themselves were running out of poses.

The Problem: Human Limits

A professional model can hold dozens of poses. But every day, for months? Even the most flexible dancer runs into repetition and strain. “Routine kills expression,” Lev says. “We wanted something that would break routine—and allow for poses no one had ever seen sketched before.”

That’s when the idea of a posing machine was born.

Model posing during one of the sketching sessions in the studio.

The Invention: A Machine for the Impossible

Piece by piece, Lev began constructing what he now calls a modular station for posing. Built from metal, ropes, adjustable supports, and rotating fixtures, it looks half like gym equipment, half like something from an artist’s dream.

Lev Boyko assembling one of his modular posing machines. Structural elements designed to hold the human body in complex, expressive poses.

The machine can transform:

Supports for arms and legs on multiple levels
Rotating hooks and frames that can shift angle in seconds
A double-sided staircase-platform that flips between ladder and ramp
Ropes and suspension points to allow inversions, stretches, and dynamic diagonals

The result? Models hanging upside down, climbing at angles, sliding, twisting, and balancing in ways no ordinary stool or cube could allow.

“We had acrobats, dancers, even a performer who literally hangs from her own hair. With this machine, they could create position that looked unreal—poses no one had ever drawn before.” — Lev Boyko

With these machines, Lev Boyko set out to explore the full expressive potential of the human body — capturing silhouettes that once felt unattainable.

Why It Matters for Artists

Seeing the human body in impossible motion changes how an artist understands anatomy. Muscles shift differently, tension reveals itself, weight distributes in strange ways. “It’s the best training for the eye,” Lev explains. “You can learn diagrams from books, but only in extreme poses does anatomy truly reveal itself.”

The machine became more than hardware. It was a portal into new visual possibilities. Lev and his peers found themselves sketching bodies that looked mythic, alien, cinematic—yet absolutely real.

One of Lev Boyko’s sketching sessions with the machine

Lessons for Artists Without a Machine

Not every artist has access to a studio or custom equipment. Lev’s advice: draw from life, always.

Sketch your cat twisting on the couch.
Catch people at cafés, in the metro, waiting at the counter.
Draw plants, trees, everyday objects—the rhythm of forms teaches the same visual discipline.
Ask your partner to pose, even for five minutes while cooking dinner.

“The point isn’t comfort—it’s persistence. Even one minute of sketching from life sharpens your eye. The model is all around you, if you look.”

The Bigger Picture

For Lev, the daily challenge continues—year after year. The machine evolves. The results accumulate. And if he could give advice to his younger self? He says it plainly:

“I’d tell myself to start five, ten years earlier. No excuses, no waiting for the right time. Just start, and keep drawing.”

The machine may be steel and bolts, but it represents something more: the refusal to accept limits, in art or in life.

✨ Coming soon: We've just released a video showing this invention in action, with behind-the-scenes footage of the daily challenge and the impossible poses it unlocked. Check it out!

0 comments

Write a comment

The reference bundle every artist needs-30% OFF!

Muscular, armed, in motion — see it

See Every Angle: 1600 Poses to Perfect Your Figure Art

30% OFF New Release: Graceful Lines — Academic Female Poses, Chapter II

New Year Sale at Grafit Studio — 50% OFF for One Day Only!

See all posts from Grafit Studio