Sculpting anatomy?

Greg DAlessandro

I want to become a digital sculptor for characters, but I really need to practice and learn anatomy. Ideally, I want to be skilled enough to be able to make ecorche sculpts, and to be able to use brush strokes purposefully and with anatomical accuracy.

Questions:
1) Do you mainly learn by doing anatomy studies via sculpting from reference images, or from reading anatomy books?
2) Do you ever sculpt from anatomy drawings?
3) Do you always sculpt with a front/side reference image?
4) Is it important to know all of the names of the bones and muscles, or just be able to "sculpt what you see"?

When I sculpt, I want to understand the musculature, landmarks, folds, and not just "guesstimate my way" to get the likeness. For example, instead of just seeing some lump, I want to know what that lump actually is under the skin.

5) Should I start off by first studying and sculpting the skeleton, then the musculature, and then random people on google?

I was going to start off by practicing likeness sculpts, and then focusing on a body part at a time, but I don't think that would be the best place to start. But this is what I was working on so far:
https://polycount.com/discussion/comment/2649399#Comment_2649399

Thank you.

oglu

all of them. use as much references you can find.
you need to learn and never stop. Anatomy is such a complex thing you will learn your whole live.

Alex_J

Try everything. Whatever works best for you. 

I like to use 2d reference images in conjunction wtih a 3d ecorche. 

For non-human anatomy, finding good reference can be a little more difficult. I've found it helpful to watch videos of the subject on youtube. So like, for an animal I may find some documentaries about it, and watching the thing in motion in real life can help clear up and uncertainties I have from using 2d images alone.

Eric Chadwick

Learn the names of the main superficial muscles & bones. This will help you identify them when bulging under the skin.

I used The Anatomy Coloring Book, but many other resources are out there. We have some on our wiki.

kanga

Yeah all the methods you described above are good. 

Yourname942 said:

...
When I sculpt, I want to understand the musculature, landmarks, folds, and not just "guesstimate my way" to get the likeness. For example, instead of just seeing some lump, I want to know what that lump actually is under the skin.
...

f you want that you can buy an anatomy model or get a digital one. As oglu said, anatomy study is a life long endevour. I feel you just dont study it , get good and move on. Its something you will continue to do, for life. There are loads of digital anatomy reference models available so google it and pick an artist who's style you find attractive and expressive, because you will be looking at it alot. I have one from Zack Petroc https://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/instructors/zack-petroc. Its a zBrush model broken up into separate tools. I decimated the parts and exported them as obj.s (GoZ or GoB wasnt available at that time). You can then import them into a 3D application (Blender 3D is free if you need it) and rotate the model around as reference while sculpting in whatever program you use. Also you can hide parts or make them transparent when and if you need to. That will give you an idea how the muscles are connected to the skeleton and you can study them in groups or singularly.

A really great reference is DAZ studio. https://www.daz3d.com/ Its free software and you used to be able to download free models. Maybe you still can. The advantage of working with this as a reference is that you can alter the model's stance and appearance by scaling or even altering the musculature or body fat using morphs however you need to. Daz lets you rotate and zoom freely and that is super for having on a screen beside the one your sculpting app is on. If you want, and you are using zBrush, you can use the  transparency slider at the top right of the interface and plot anatomical markers from your reference under zBrush to check proportions.

Good luck.