This classic sculpture depicts Laocoon and his two sons in a battle with giant serpents and is considered one of the greatest works of Greek sculpture.

If you’ve studied a single figure like Michelangelo’s David, this is the next challenge: three intertwined bodies reacting at once.

Laocoon’s extended arm draws you into the chaos as the snake wraps around it and through the rest of the figures in a continuous diagonal sweep. Limbs reach, recede, and overlap, giving you a dynamic pose with foreshortening to study.

Rotate it, relight it, and practice line-of-action drawing, the body under tension from any angle, and rendering extended curvature all in one scene.