Stylized Soldier
polycounter lvl 8
Working on this guy, first time doing a human in ZBrush, stylized or otherwise. Concept is my own, so I'm probably going to ditch the rifle for a better silhouette. We'll see.
Struggling with matching the drawing, but I've got some time on my hands to keep cranking on it. Trying to get the long neck without going full-on giraffe has become a serious challenge.
Replies
Really nice concept and character, I would agree that taking one of the weapons out would made the silhouette a lot stronger, though if you keep him with the sword it might not read as a solider so much. A few notes on the anatomy, firstly prioirtise the look of the sculpt rather than matching the concept. If something is different in the model but it looks better, keep it different.
With the anatomy, I think the butt cheeks need lowering until they're lower than the groin, you don't really have much of an indication of many bone structures like the rib cage, scapulars or collar bones. Depending on how far you're wanting to go I would spend time finding some really good reference of the body type you want, I feel like possibly looking into male models may pay off here as they're generally slim yet still have a nice amount of definition in their muscles. Also, if you're worried about the length of the neck and how it looks, decide once you get your base clothing in there as especially with the collar, it will change how much it reads.
And some imagery to go with my points on the anatomy,
Your end character ends up pretty covered, so in the end the anatomy may not be seen but I always think putting the practice in is worth it X3 Keep it up!
Also, what were you thinking of doing with the rifle? I think it would look pretty cool, and am wondering what you'd add instead to beef up the silhouette.
Keep it up, I dig it so far!
@VeryCrunchyTaco Hopefully I managed to address a lot of them! Definitely trying to learn as much as possible. Not sure yet with rifle, either ditching it or the sword completely, or changing how it's slung to have a stronger silhouette. Thanks for the kind words!
So lets go down head to foot, starting with the neck. The main muscles here are the trapezius that wraps up the back of the neck and the sternocleidomastoid (veery long name) which goes from the centre of the collar bones and up behind the ear. In between these nothing really connects to the collarbone and you tend to get a dip there, where as you still have a form underneath the skin as if there's a muscle connecting. As a rule, I tend to check and make sure that the trapezius isn't visible as part of the neck from a front on view, just the sternycliedo-mybob muscle, which is true for your sculpt except I think it's because you've added a non existent muscle in the middle.
I think this would be important to fix as it will be seen in your final piece.
The rest is mainly general. I would say your proportions work nicely (though I don't have a good eye for that sort of thing) but you could push the anatomy to be more accurate. The scapulars in particular are extremely clear and could do with fading out a fair bit. I'm also struggling to put my finger on why, but your legs and hips are looking weird. It may be that the groin needs pushing in or the hips need bringing forward. Your legs are also really undefined. For this stuff you just need to get some really good reference and keep on improving it. Generally I find the best place to find anatomy reference is on deviant art, if you just search 'male nudes' there are quite a few good reference shots people have uploaded.
^This is to show that while the scapulars are visible, they're under the skin. The lighting would be useful to help you with the trapezius which for you is very large.
^Your upper arm forms the wrong shapes, mainly with the deltoid. Mainly visible in the side shot, there are inner curves. The deltoid is a muscle which is used a lot and it's over a round shoulder joint, it shouldn't really be curving inwards all that much. You are also missing some muscle definition in the upper arms, however note the rotation of the hands. The illustration is forward facing while yours is backward, meaning in particular the triceps won't be visible from the front like it is in the illustration.
Reference for the legs
Its important to remember with reference that its only showing you one angle of the muscle. Try and get a lot of different reference from a lot of different angles, but keep in mind the body type you're looking for so you don't make certain muscles too large or small. Searching for particular male models and sites like deviant art often give you some really nice quality photos that just general google searches won't get you. I personally find trying to do stylised anatomy really challenging, largely because I'm not confident enough at changing things and it being, or at least looking correct. Searching for images of 3d sculpts might help you with inspiration of the style, but always try and keep your actual reference from real life humans :P Keep at it! Looking forward to seeing more
Great call on the neck, I've been looking at too many illustrations of muscles and I totally misinterpreted the forms of the scalene muscles.
Not quite sure what you mean by inner curves on the deltoid, I do know that with the forward rotation of the shoulder in my sculpt the insertion point appears to roll forward and be visible on the top of the bicep, but I don't think that's what you're referring to? I would definitely appreciate any clarity on that, but I'll give the deltoids another pass and see if I can't figure it.
What I mean with the deltoid is that the curves of the muscles bend inwards too much. They're quite bulgy muscles
I just started to catch up of the zbrush summit and this guy is really cool,
I'm going to re-sculpt the face as it's not working for me at all, and then get going on the other pieces.