How to Find Canva Characters in Different Poses
- Heather Cash
- Feb 12
- 3 min read
If you're using Canva graphics to create pictures for your children's book, then it's important to find a character that's a available in different poses, that you can add variety to your scenes and more easily convey your story to the reader.
You might say, "Why don't I just use AI to create my characters?" I actually don't recommend using AI to create your book characters - watch my video about the topic to learn why. However, the decision is ultimately yours to make.
Finding characters in different poses is going to be a lot easier if you have Canva Pro - and I always appreciate it so much when my affiliate link is used 💕
To find characters to use, go Elements in the toolbar on the left side of Canva, and then click on Graphics. Then, enter your search term in the search bar. I like to use a pretty general search term, like [girl] or [woman] or [raccoon].
Then, scroll down through the results until you see something you like. Mouse over the result, and click the 3 dots in the upper-righthand corner of the picture. If you see an option for View Collection in the menu that comes up, you can click on that. If not, then click [View more by [artist name]] at the top of the menu.
Here you will be brought to a search page for that particular artist's work. Search for your character within that artist's work to see if they have more poses of that same character. In the search box, type that same general search term, like [girl]. Then click Submit (the arrow).
Scroll through the results and see if you can find more versions of that same character. Make sure you pay close attention to hair color, eye color, eye shape, and face shape. These will help you determine if it truly is the same character, or just one that looks similar. You don't want your character's eyes changing color partway through your book!
If you don't find more poses of that same character, not to worry! Just press the back button and try again. Scroll further through the results until you see another character you like, and repeat the process.
The same applies to animal characters as well. Make sure you look at the particular coloring of the animals to make sure they are the same character. For example, you might think two foxes look similar, but if one has black tipped ears and the other doesn't, then they are not the same character.
If you want more tips on finding characters for your book, check out my course where I walk you through creating a children's book in Canva from start to finish. I will show you how to customize your character more, and also how to build out great looking scenes using Canva elements, how to save out your files, and how to upload and publish to Amazon KDP!
I also have an extra bonus tip - because even if you find a character in lots of different poses, you still may not have one that expresses the emotion you want. So to change your character's facial expression, you'll need to get rid of the mouth and eyebrows on your character and replace them with new ones.
If your character is made of flat colors, you can cover the existing features using a shape (like a circle) that is the same color as the character's skin (or fur!). If your character has some texture, then you can use the Magic Eraser in Canva to get rid of those features.
Once you do that, you can search for [cartoon mouth] and [cartoon eyebrow] to find new features that you can use to overlay on top of your character. However, make sure you remember to change the colors of these new features so that they coordinate with your character colors!
If you want some suggestions of Canva artists that have characters in different poses, download my FREE PDF Character Sheet!
Also, I do have a service where I will draw a character for you in different poses that you can drop into your scenes. So if you are interested in that, here's where you can find those services.
You can also download my free Children's Book Marketing Guide & Self-Publishing Checklist so you have everything you need to create your children's book!
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