Lady in a hoop (anatomy study)
polycounter
EDIT: latest update
Hi guys,
I've been peeking into the Polycount community for some time now and I saw some pretty impressive stuff! But I never really took the chance to show anything myself. That was mostly because I was focusing on my job and I wasn't producing so much interesting stuff.
So, let's just fix that.
Lately I started working on this zbrush project in order to review my anatomy knowledge and hopefully I'll also be able to learn something new.
I've started by using this reference from the "Bodyes In Motion" library by Scott Eaton. I'm using that as an inspiration and a base guideline for the pose. Most of the secondary shapes, though, are being placed in there by myself. So, it's not a straight copy of the reference but rather an interpretation. As I go, I'm trying to understand what's going on with her superficial anatomy.
So far, I've been focusing on her torso, upper arms and just recently her legs.
I would really love to know what you guys think about this. Let me know if you have any critique and if you think I'm messing up something. I might even be messing up everything for what I know!
Cheers!
Hi guys,
I've been peeking into the Polycount community for some time now and I saw some pretty impressive stuff! But I never really took the chance to show anything myself. That was mostly because I was focusing on my job and I wasn't producing so much interesting stuff.
So, let's just fix that.
Lately I started working on this zbrush project in order to review my anatomy knowledge and hopefully I'll also be able to learn something new.
I've started by using this reference from the "Bodyes In Motion" library by Scott Eaton. I'm using that as an inspiration and a base guideline for the pose. Most of the secondary shapes, though, are being placed in there by myself. So, it's not a straight copy of the reference but rather an interpretation. As I go, I'm trying to understand what's going on with her superficial anatomy.
So far, I've been focusing on her torso, upper arms and just recently her legs.
I would really love to know what you guys think about this. Let me know if you have any critique and if you think I'm messing up something. I might even be messing up everything for what I know!
Cheers!
Replies
Just wanted to say Lookin good!
Best!
@PeteJViney Yes, the references I'm using are linked on top on the first post on this thread. They're from a library of photos of dancers and athletes in general. Very good stuff indeed but having a girlfriend doing aerial hoop would be even better!
Meanwhile, I kept working on her left arm. The striation is still very apparent and I think if feels a bit unbalanced compared to the rest of the body. I'm planning on tuning it down a bit but not just yet: I still need it as a guide.
I've also started working on the right arm. My plan with that is to get a good sense of tension of the flexors muscles.
I'm sharing a very small update and I hope to be able to find some more time in the near future to work on this.
Here is a rough pass on the left hand. Still a lot of work to do...
Cheers!
Anyway, I've checked the lef upper arm shape and I realized it was probably way too tapered overall. So I reshaped it a bit. Hopefully it's more convincing now.
I'm also reworking the back a bit since I wasn't happy with the way it looked. I still get the sensation I'm not nailing it so I guess I'll have to study harder. If you guys have any suggestion or critiques, I'm all ears.
Also, some work on her face:
I've been mostly working on the back, the shoulders, the rib cage, and the left external oblique.
I also modified the shape of the eyes since I think they were looking really bad from the front view...
The hair also was refined a bit but I'm still far from done with that.
I still have to work on the feet: I almost didn't touch them since the beginning!
I'm going to get more free time in the next few months so I think I'll manage to wrap this up soon.
The face feels off though, cant put my finger on it but something with the eyes, nose and forehead feel weird to me. The face looks too long, I think the eyes might be a smidge too high up compared to the ears.
Looking forward to seeing more updates
Yes, I agree with you, the face is not nailed at all... I'll be focusing more on that problem next. I still think the front view is particularly bad. Yet I don't dislike the profile and 3/4 views...
Thank you again for your input!
1. the middle part of her face is too tall compared to the rest
2. The eyesocket is rather small, the pupil and iris are too big for the eyeball
3. the teeth are too narrow, the shape of the lip is oddly curved
I did a quick paintover to show you, the lips still look a lil weird though.
Yes, about the hands, I was already planning on working more on the contact folds and bulges. The same goes for the left thigh.
Cheers!
So far I've adjusted the overall height of the eyes and pulled them farther apart from each other, fixed the iris/sclera ratio, and studied the structure of her eye sockets a bit more.
Now, back to business! I'll post some updates soon.
Hi, thank you for your comment!
I'm mostly working from imagination on this. I'm only relying on references whenever I feel like I have to verify something...
You might be right though! I'm having a pretty hard time trying to find some good examples of people with such a prominent maxilla...
I think I'll just push that back a little bit. I'm still tweaking her face anyway.
Thank you for pointing that out.
More updates are on the way
So finally I started working on her feet. That was something I almost totally neglected all this time.
As far as the face is concerned, I've tweaked it a bit since the last update. The mouth is now whider, she has some new theeth, the jaw shape changed slightly, the eyelids shape is better defined and I took @Elithenia's suggestion and pushed the mouth and nose back a bit.
Here some more views:
I'm really not ready to call anything final yet so I'll just let you guys judge.
The ears are also more fleshed out now.
With the face id suggest putting some eyelashes on even if theyre temporary, your eyes will look off until you do. Also get some solid reference for the face, from one actress or model, otherwise you will find yourself trying to sculpt some sort of average face that will never look right.
Hey, thank you for stopping by! I've been putting quite an effort on the body expressiveness. So I'm glad that's noticeable.
I'm aware about the problem with the hands: that's already on my "to do" list.
I'm going to try and give her some eyelashes. It sounds like it could help.
About the references, you certainly have a good point: not caring for a good set of references is a rookie mistake. But at the same time I really don't want her to look like anyone specific. So, if she comes across as generic, I'm actually ok with that. If she doesn't look right though, that's an entirely different story! Yet, I'm not convinced those two things are necessarely related.
Anyway, I'll work more on her face while relying more on references and less on my memory.
I think her face is pretty much fine now.
Still no eyelashes... I'm probably not going to make them since hyperrealism is not the point of this exercise. I'm just going to refine what's left, do a couple of clay renders, and that's going to be the end of it.
lately I had some fun trying to make some suggestive renders.
I'm going to wrap this up very soon. I don't think there's a point in dragging this wip for more than one more week now.
I might decide to takle a proper game character next and maybe some less demanding sketches. I'll see...
What do you guys think about the render? Does anyone have any compositing trick that would improve the presentation?
It makes the muscles look very interesting.
I'm super glad you like my work. It really means a lot to me!
From now on, I consider her officially finished. It was very fun and satisfying but now it's definitely time to move on.
If you have any more critiques, I'll still be listening and keeping those in mind for future projects.
So, here a bounch of renders: