my first character sculpt...
polycounter lvl 6
Howdy folks, this is my first sculpt and I know it needs some work but if somebody could give me some tips for a beginner how to improve upon this sculpt. Right off the bat I can tell I need some ab work, and the a** looks a bit odd.... but I don't know what to do to fix it. thanks!
Replies
josh.0, what do you mean by my shapes dont look confident? like defined in the sculpt or stand out-ish?
Also, what is your end goal with this model? Are you just practicing anatomy, or will he be mostly covered in clothing or armor?
the end goal is just like a muscular,fit, and athletic male. just a little above average but not a body builder. I'm gonna end up putting clothes on him but I need a good unclothed version as well as I want the option to have an ancient warrior type of apparel.
[ame="http://www.amazon.com/ZBrush-Digital-Sculpting-Human-Anatomy/dp/0470450266"]ZBrush Digital Sculpting Human Anatomy: Scott Spencer: 9780470450260: Amazon.com: Books[/ame]
For learning anatomy, Andrew Loomis is an old stand-by for drawing the human figure, but there is still valuable information to be had for sculptors as well. You should be able to find these free in e-book form with a quick search. I use his child/adult head count references all the time - extremely useful sheets. There are, of course, plenty of other books concerning anatomy - I would look into these. You don't necessarily need ZBrush specific tutorials on sculpting bodies - they're helpful, I'm not going to diss that idea - but never underestimate a solid understanding of anatomy. All you need to do to get that is dogged persistence/practice!
As for your reference sheet - I would spend some time collecting more references. The muscle chart is good - but look up some full-body photos as well, front and back - you're gonna wanna see how skin acts over that muscle and that chart isn't going to help you there. I stress full body photos because it's going to help you see how it all plays together. Close ups of arms, legs, backs, torsos are nice too - for when you're working on a specific area, but that's a later game. Which brings me to your actual sculpt...
Right now you're blocking in forms. Nothing is too defined here and I want you to keep it that way for a bit because your anatomy needs some work. Again, I think a full photo of a front view is going to help you here. Still, I'll throw in my immediate observations.
Your head seems a little on the small side (everything, everything, everything can be measured in relation to the head). Four head lengths (including the head itself) should measure out where the character's crotch goes, and right now we're hitting a bit higher than we need to be, which means your torso is too long (from crotch to below the pecs). Two heads (including the actual head) should be where the nipples are (its hitting the bottom of the pecs now, pecs need to be a little bigger length-wise, the next two heads should get you to the crotch). Make sure your legs are four head lengths from the crotch. When you enlarge the head, you'll see how small the pecs look in relation to the lower torso. Also, men have much narrower hips than women, but you've really flattened his out here. Widen them just a touch. Another much less important crit, where muscle on the forearm meets the wrist - it really flattens out there. You want a much more gradual slope in that area.
If any of this doesn't make sense, let me know. Especially the last bit about the arms - I might do a quick paintover to illustrate my point if you need me to.
DWalker, the link is broken, but if it's the free 3D Character Art for Games videos then yes I have seen these but the body looks stylized to me. Thank you for the link though!
Velktri, I have been considering this book but I've read on forums that it's not easy to comprehend and not an ideal source of learning for a beginner like me, what do you think?
sim,
I bought a one month subscription to 3d.sk and donloaded plenty of full-body images for a muscular male to use as reference but the muscle on them is not so defined because there's no shadows. You can't see all the details on those references yet everybody and plenty of books recommend 3d.sk for this...
thanks for the crits and the head measurements, I will try to make adjustments if that can be done, I'll probably have to go back to 3ds max for this huh?
No, not if you don't want to. You can use the transpose features + masking inside of Zbrush and resize if you are comfortable with smoothing the ridges out after - fine details will be lost this way, of course. Masking and then transpose + move brush = you can mess with proportions all day long. That's just how I do it though, so if you're more comfortable in 3dsmax, I would recommend you go with what you know.
As for references... well, I know 3d.sk is a really good resource, but you might need to go digging in other places for what you need. Even if the full body isn't *exactly* what you're looking for in terms of muscle definition - it's still a very good idea to keep it up somewhere while you're sculpting to keep you honest.
just take your time, get used to not always having a perfect image for you to use, look around, get some anatomy images, keep looking at references.
Something I probably should have mentioned before is that that chart is ideal proportions. You're going to have a hard time finding real people who will match it, because let's face it, most humans don't fit into idealizations. Still, as a general guide and learning tool, ideal proportions are the best way to go, because that is what people desire to see, and this is nowhere more true than in game character creation. It's difficult to play with different shapes and sizes until you have a good foundation to work off of - you've probably heard the saying 'Don't break the rules till you've learned them?' The most important thing to take away from it is the head measurement - it's the tried and true method of getting accurate proportions.
Turista's link is pretty awesome there for that.
Don't panic if you can't find a full body shot of the exact body type you want - it was good to try and find one though. I encouraged it only because it can help give you a base to play off of, a starting point. If the muscular ref you have isn't exactly what you want, that's okay because all you have to do after that is collect other refs for each body part.
I agree the hips are still off - I think he might need a bit more thickness in that area to compensate for the bulkiness of his thigh muscles there - male hips aren't as rounded as females are, but they still have them, they're just more angular in shape. His arms might be a bit on the small side too - especially the wrists, they're looking really thin.
How much detail work do you want to pump into him here? Do you have any clothing planned?