bkost's improvement diary

bkost

Hi polycounters, here I'll be posting my zbrush pieces to log my progress, see my improvement from one sculpt to the next, and receive feedback/ critiques

Latest

foreverlost

I don't know much of anything about anatomy but will enjoy watching your progress. Do you mean to have those seams/articulations at the neck, wrists, and ankles?

bkost

Hey foreverlost, I appreciate your interest of my work

With those seams that you are talking about, I separated each of those so I could keep dynameshing those parts of the model individually without dynameshing the whole sculpt.

Once I was done I attempted to piece it all together, but I was having a tough time connecting them. If anyone has any suggestions for doing so, that would be awesome!

Here's a sculpt that I just finished up...
You can view the turntable here - http://bkost.tumblr.com/post/125873917504/hand-of-misfortune#notes

bkost

Working on an Ancient Magical Book.. Next up is fix up the low poly, unwrap, then texture!

Watcha think of it?

bkost

Two Male Face Sculpts

bkost

Body Sculpt for the day

bkost

Here's that book all finished! Watcha think?



Maps

Fireseed

Hey man keep it up! Practice makes perfect so just try and get at least one sculpt in a day.

In your "Body sculpt of the day" it's coming along but just look at some reference as to how long the torso is compared to the rest of the body. If you really want to improve your anatomy I highly recommend getting some books on the subject and really studying as much as you practice.

Personally I recommend [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Figure-Drawing-Invention-Michael-Hampton/dp/0615272819/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1439849371&sr=8-4&keywords=anatomy+for+the+artist"]Figure Drawing: Design and Invention[/ame] give it a read through once to get the basic idea. And then go back through really understand the concepts. What a lot of anatomy comes down to is breaking up the body into various primitives and then blending them together.

bkost

Hi Fireseed, thank you! I am following along with Rafael Grassetti, but thanks for all the awesome info and book

Here's another male sculpt

bkost

X-Men, Bishop Bust

ref -

bkost

Starting on a first fully modeled character with clothes! I feel comfortable enough to get into this now from the practice of creating the textures for the book and Bishop bust...

Let's see how it goes

WIP



Ooh and here's a RedditGetsDrawn I recently made

bkost

Quite busy with school! But I felt like I should get back into the habit of posting here again.

Here's a quick update on pieces I've made...

bkost

A small more amount of work went into the female model. I'm going to start a new one and create an Ecorche model instead of jumping a little bit ahead and getting into the details. I need to nail the base mesh down first!

bkost

I'm now Working on a lower poly level, which in turn helps me focus on the larger forms and not dive into all the details!

bkost

Planes of Female Head, trying to get base form down as quickly as possible.

1hr 20min study

bkost

Another female mesh, this will be for a character! Here's a progress shot, I think it's cool to see how your model slowly transforms

bkost

Working on a sculpt from a live model in my Figure Sculpture class, this is the first time working with a model and it is fantastic. It is nice to get away from the desk and work traditionally.

I'm looking for critiques on this model, anything you see that could be fixed? Apologies for no reference, grabbing pics of the model is not allowed

bkost

bkost

bkost

Marmoset Render

bkost

Current Project - MG 08/15

bkost

MG 08/15 Update

bkost

Body progress for Soldier that will go along with the MG 08/15

bkost

Armor WIP for soldier

bkost

Here is my most recent WIP for a female anatomy study, getting some more eyes on it would be really nice. I feel the arm and hand connection are off, but I cant pin down the problem

bkost

I've started up Scott Eaton's anatomy workshops. I'm tackling his two courses, 'Anatomy for Artists' and 'Digital Figure Sculpture' in a particular way. To really hammer in all the substantial information Scott is throwing at me, I'm running the two courses together. They tackle the body anatomy in a similar manner, focusing on individual regions of the body each week. 
 
I'm going to be focusing on learning the muscles/bony landmarks and drawing ecorches first to slowly digest the content. Then transition into 3d and tackle the digital sculpture assignment for that particular body region. The first week kicks things off with the torso.

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Male Torso Fragment



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Female Torso Fragment



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VD2Vnj9e58

BestiART

both looks good man, i'm taking the scott eaton  anatomy course too.. after 2 week already know many things that i didn't get by myself. Keep rocking

carvuliero

Did you receive your official critique already ?

bkost

Hey @BestiART awesome dude! You should consider making a thread similar to this to track your progress during the course. It's fun to look back and see your improvements

Hey @carvuliero I'm doing the courses offline and at my own pace. Now onto the anatomy of the arm!

BestiART

yeah you are right, good idea!

carvuliero

In this case you shouldn't rush but sculpt one of those every day , torso is complex enough to be worth spending few weeks on it

bkost

The 2d ecorche studies/watching through videos took about 5 days and each torso (Male and Female) each took 3 days (approx 6 hrs each). So you're saying sculpt a new torso each day? @carvuliero
 cheers

edit: oh and next up is actually studying the 'Scapula Humeral Rhythm' so basically seeing how the scapula and back change shape as the arms raise. Then I'll be focusing on arm anatomy

carvuliero

First attempt might of taken you that long but with every other attempt you will get faster and on top of that will learn new things .You can always go back to this portion once you run thought the whole course of course

bkost

Here is some progress on the 0 Degree pose for the Scapulo Humeral Rhythm study. Still pushing and pulling, something is a little off on the anterior ribcage and pelvis. Trying to figure it out

Edit: Going to restart this piece and follow my own advice and focus on primary forms and the planes of the anatomy.

bkost

Just wrapped up the Scapulo Humeral Rhythm study, I need to invest more time into understanding rotation and interaction between the Scapula, Humerus, and Clavicle. Here are the key points I've picked up during the workshop..

• Scapula rotation is determined by the humerus adduction. Once the humerus hits 30+ degrees adduction, there is a 2:1 rotation ratio. Humerus and Scapula respectively.

• The clavicle elevates and rotates as well. For every 45+ degree increase of the humerus, the clavicle is elevated 10 degrees. Maxed at 25 degrees, so once the humerus hits 135 degress of adduction. 

Not happy with how the back turned out on each morph. It's a destructive workflow and tough to return to previous morphs. I plan to revisit this and do another study down the line, it's critical to understand this rhythm whenever sculpting a posed model. Next up is the arms!

Lou_

This is looking really nice so far man! 

bkost

Finished up with the arm lectures. There is a lot to understand in the forearm of the arm, the interaction between the ulna and radius as the arm supinates and pronates is pretty hard to nail down. Here is one mnemoic device that may be useful for remembering the positions of the two forearm bones, "The thumb has a large radius." it sounds silly but hopefully it will help. The styloid process of the radius is always on the thumb side of the forearm.

Understanding the muscles of the forearm is another challenge, now that we understand that the radius rotates around the ulna during pronation; we need to keep in mind that the muscles follow suit. During supination the inside muscles (anterior) of the forearm are the flexors, the outside (posterior) are extensors. 

Key landmarks for blocking out the arm

• Acromion process
• Olecranon plus lateral and medial epicondyle (all three make up elbow landmarks)
• Ulnar furrow (separates ext. and flexors on pronated posterior side)
• Styloid processes of ulna and radius

Scott Eaton pushes the importance of ecorche paintovers on pictures, I decided to push it into the 3d realm to get comfortable viewing these muscles in unique angles. I also did another quick torso study and my first of many arm studies. I find the arm quite complex, esp. in the forearm. I hope to become more comfortable with it in the coming week as I tackle the workshop assignment. Cheers




Thank you @Lou_ I appreciate it! 

bkost

Did a new arm study with the same torso (adjusted proportions a bit). I feel I'm getting a bit better understanding of the various plane changes of the forearm, the big hurdle to tackle is the variation of plane changes whenever the arm rotates. Baby steps..
I'm wanting to achieve that 'relaxed' feel for an a-pose and that comes down to the wrist and hand connection. At times when I feel like I'm gaining zero progress I will take a few angles and post them up next to a scanned model and do a couple quick paintovers & proportion lines to get a feel for what isn't working. (looking at the angles now, the thumb abductor and extensor connection + triceps looks a bit funny) 

bkost

I'm going to be hopping between Scott Eaton's anatomy workshops depending on the section of the body I'd like to focus on. I'm having a tough time nailing down face construction, so I'll be diving into his facial anatomy videos. As for the full body anatomy workshop, I have the Legs, Hands, and Feet to get around to. (Plus the arm workshop assignment)

Here is a female skull study. In week one of the facial anatomy course, Eaton focuses on the construction of the skull and important landmarks. (Left is sculpt and right is female ct scan data) Shout out to carvuliero

bkost

Onto week 3 of Eaton's facial anatomy. Been delving into the subcutaneous fatty deposits on the face, specifically the eye fat pads for today. It's wonderful learning about what makes up the face and what drives the look of a certain person depending on diet, age, and genetics. The face is becoming less intimidating now that I'm becoming aware of these variables. 

Here is a quick head sculpt, I wish to practice more. Upon searching likeness studies, @carvuliero suggested cranking out a number of planar face sculpts from scratch to become comfortable with the base shapes and angles. Carvuliero recommends Jaesung Choi's youtube face sculpt timelapses. Although it is in Korean, Choi offers great blockout techniques.

bkost

Wrapped up week 3 lectures today, time to digest all of this content. We covered what makes up most of the shape of a face, the assortment of fat pads. There is a lot to take in so I'll be doing a number of ecorche paintovers to have a better understanding of what is going on in a variety of different faces. 

Here is the ecorche and another quick face blockout.

bkost

Another week 3 Ecorche and my attempt at a likeness sculpt. I'm wanting to become comfortable with likeness, but for now my main focus is understanding what all goes on superficially in the face.

bkost

Gaining confidence with the various facial fat pads and where they reside. Here's another ecorche, skull study and daily sculpt.

Nuclear Angel

Your progress is really nice man! One thing is to double check the upper shape of your skulls and their overall proportions. They are a bit elongated and a bit balloony in the back. Also the Temporal arch is a bit to soft in your latest skull, while the chin and teeth are quite wide.

Also I would recommend to do the neck all the way down to the collar bone, that way you can give the neck a better connection to your face as the shape is a bit more complex than a cylinder.  

Aydhe

if that ain't bkost Good job man, keep up good work.

bkost

Been working with carvuliero and setting up a practice regimen to level up my face anatomy. I want to shoot for daily sculpts focusing on face blockout/proportion + adding facial features, a skull study, and doing more 2d drawing to train my eye using carvuliero's 'Learn to see' guide.

Hey @Nuclear Angel Thank you! Can you explain more about the balloony problem? I appreciate the critique
Hi @Aydhe I appreciate it man! Cheers

carvuliero

Workflow analysis is probably to fast to read , use phtoshop to review individual images

bkost

Missed yesterday's daily work unfortunately, I spent the day at the zoo! Here is my daily Skull, Face blockout and features, and ecorche. I plan to hop into carvuliero's 'learn to see' tomorrow. 

Thank you @carvuliero for the great tips and breakdown! I tried to keep the skull study a bit more planar, I believe i figured out the planes of the posterior side. The zygomatic & orbital area looks a little funny. I didn't nail the zygomatic hero shape.
For the face study, looks like the posterior side of the skull is too short and orbital may be too small. Right now he has a giant mandible in the profile view haha

Nuclear Angel

Sorry for late reply, but carvuliero made a pretty good gif of it. You already addressed the problem in your latest wip. You were missing the planes of the head shape in your previous posts, you just had a round shape so I said Baloony, but should have phrased it like you should focus on the planes of the main skull shape. Great job on your latest WIP, keep up this great progress. 

bkost

Another day of a skull and face study. Thanks @Nuclear Angel! I need to make sure to keep on eye out on all the unique plane changes in the skull. 

Not sure when I should begin to focus on face likeness, more importantly I'm afraid I'm developing a habit of creating one particular face & skull shape. 

edit: Looks like the lateral orbital edge is tilted too much on skull

Nuclear Angel

Maybe do a female head bust to vary it up. I think as long as you really try to catch different heads and shapes it will be hard to get in a to bad of a habit.