Male Anatomy practice - looking for feedback

Fernando Tejada

Hi guys, I'm looking for feedback for my male anatomy study. I've followed Rafa Grassetti anatomy tutorial, next step would be to start refining the small shapes but I think I might be missing some big mistakes in my overall proportions or muscle groups definitions. I haven't worked hands, feet or head yet.

Here's what I got so far:



My goal is to have a really nice anatomy study I can post in my artstation in order to build a character art portfolio, and also probably reuse it as a basemesh for future projects. 

Many thanks!

Alex_J

The lower leg area is looking pretty crude still. You've kind of got the correct form in general but it needs some refinement. Look's like the gastro's just kind of stop and some lump is beneath them... I think you knew what you were looking at, just didn't put enough time into that area yet. 

Intercostal muscles usually come down further along the ribs. I don't think the placement of those muscles varies much from person to person -- ribcage size and volume of different muscles might, but if you think about what function those muscsles actually perform, you'll realize they'd be useless so far back along the ribs. 

Like the lower legs, more time on the forearms would probably help as well. Those muscles are hard to make sense of. What helps me is to start from the bone, and then use your muscle charts or an ecorche to just wrap one muscle at a time along the length of the bone. They all have a little bit of twist to them, so I find it easiest to just go one at a time like that. After you do this a few times, you  get to where you have a solid understanding without needing to be so tedious each time.

Overall, great start. But for a portfolio showcase, you could probably spend another week or two just refining, refining, refining. 

Inside lightbox in ZBrush, in the tools section, you got a great base mesh you can use as a gauge for quality. For a base mesh, you'd probably want to look as good as that at least. Also note that for a base mesh, it's very useful to have the model split into logical polygroups and maybe even have UV's and a basic skin albedo texture. Just helps speed up future work.

carvuliero

I have seen few similar results , actually I could tell that is out of Grassetti's tutorial before reading your post

Pretty much same start maybe can pick few tips

Link : https://polycount.com/discussion/190748/soldier-base-mesh-development-and-anatomy-study-nsfw/p1

Fernando Tejada

@BIGTIMEMASTER Hey thanks for the feedback. Will definitely work mork on the legs, now that I have given this piece some time I can see the mistakes you point out. Same for the intercostal muscles, although your comment made me realise I know nothing about what these muscles actually do, so I think I should study more their function and gather more reference. And yeah I struggled a lot with the forearms, thanks for the tips, will definitely apply them next time.

@carvuliero Amazing thread, you gave that guy really insightful critiques. Just from the few first posts, I notice I haven't really checked on my proportions, I just followed Rafa tutorial, but I should double check my model again with proper reference. So much information! Spent the morning reading, thanks!

carvuliero

If you have any specific question which is not covered just ask below

BTW probably BIGTIMEMASTER meant some other muscle group as intercostals are deep and cannot be seen on the surface[if I have to guess serratus anterior fit the bill] -> depends on which specific muscle either raising or lowering the ribs angle with which help you breath[intercostals]

Alex_J

carvuliero said:

BTW probably BIGTIMEMASTER meant some other muscle group as intercostals are deep

 Yep, you're right. Thanks for the correction. 

About muscle function, just remember muscles only contract. They stick onto two different bones, and they contract, which makes movement. So even if you haven't read about a certain muscle, if you can see where it connects to the bones, just squeeze it together with your minds eye and watch what happens. 

Fernando Tejada

Little update, couldn't work much on this.

I zremeshed and reprojected the details of the previous sculpt. Dropping a couple subdivisions is always a good idea, in this case gave me more freedom to fix proportions and simplify some areas. I tried to follow Paul Richer's proportion charts that I saw carvuliero posted in the other thread.

I also worked on the forearms, lower legs and the serratus area, following bigtimemaster advice, among general corrections I found along the way. Hands and feet were terrible, so I simplified them to basic shapes. I plan on doing a separate study on those parts first and then apply the knowledge here. 

Gave him some facial features, mostly because I wanted to insert the neck muscle behind the ears. 😅



As always, any feedback is appreciated!

priderice

The front view of the Latissimus is a bit extreme, but after the update, it looks more reasonable. Good Job! And I recommend to model the Eyes, Mouth, and Ears separately as their own Tool (Build out of a Sphere). This gives you a better understanding for their Forms and Thiccness 

carvuliero

Looks like you pushing it further with a good pace

Check your mid point do you want more legs then torso ?

Check arm length , there is no front view but they look on a monkey side

Learn to use Plumb line : for example drop a line from furthest most point on the back and now check is butt on that line is it on left or right of it  and compare with  your reference and your liking , same for the calf and heel .You can try this on quadriceps they look a bit weak or not quite reaching their insertion [side view]

Fernando Tejada

Thanks @priderice and @carvuliero for the feedback. Not sure if I got how the Plumb line works though, is it like a drawing exercise? 

Dropping here the little progress I have. Lower mid point and shorter the arms for the main body. Started separate hand and foot studies. These are very rough dynameshed sketches, I wanted to get the basic forms there and understand the underlying bone structure. I used my own hand and foot as main reference, although looked some reference photos aswell. I think if I polish those I could reuse them for the final model tweaking them a bit.

carvuliero

I will suggest to hide arms and work on the body till you happy with it[if face is distracting you smooth it ] , also got reference of a bodybuilder or fitness model with body type you like to supplement your anatomy charts

Did you try to watch Grassetti tutorial one more time ?

Fernando Tejada

As always, thanks for the feedback @carvuliero. I picked a male fitness model and reworked my model a bit, now it's more muscular. I also rewatched some of the tutorials by Grassetti and fixed proportions again. I have a question for you, if you are familiar with this tutorial. Do you think it's a valid source for anatomy training? Or should I find more indepth information, like anatomy books or longer courses... 

Here's my progress so far, I also integrated hands and feet:

carvuliero

You should post your new references .About tutorial I have seen some of the videos only once so I cant really tell but from results that came out of it to me its like someone took you by the hand for a walk in the forest and left you in the most dense part to find your way back home alone . In my experience learning from multiple source is the best way I will give you 2 examples why :

- in some cases information is scattered  like a jigsaw puzzle you got one piece from tutorial one piece from a book and at some point whole picture start to make sense

- if you check any of anatomy atlases for muscle insertion/origin they all saying different things like there is no one spot the muscle originate  [ignoring the one that copy from one another] now substitute atlases with ppl teaching you anatomy they will all say different things that my be "correct" but not exact , same with illustration how muscle should/is looking

Because of this 2 above I have bunch of different source of information that I can double and triple check everything

BTW legs will need some work and please raise pectoralis insertion => this should fix weird look of the torso

Note : use this one for gesture explanation

Note continue : with this legs maybe or find better

Note continue^: use this to balance legs with the body

Fernando Tejada

Thanks @carvuliero for the feedback. 

Here's my progress so far, tried to fix the mistakes you pointed (pectoralis insertion, legs...) and worked a bit on the face and some asymmetry details.



Here's more pics of the reference I gathered.

At this point I think I might look into other anatomy resources, I feel like I hit a wall regarding what can I achieve with my current knowledge. It would also be cool to get one of those ecorchés figurines to have in hand and physically check the body anatomy.

Fernando Tejada

Thanks @carvuliero for the feedback. 

Here's my progress so far, tried to fix the mistakes you pointed (pectoralis insertion, legs...) and worked a bit on the face and some asymmetry details.



Here's more pics of the reference I gathered.

At this point I think I might look into other anatomy resources, I feel like I hit a wall regarding what can I achieve with my current knowledge. It would also be cool to get one of those ecorchés figurines to have in hand and physically check the body anatomy.

Fernando Tejada

Thanks @carvuliero for the feedback. 

Here's my progress so far, tried to fix the mistakes you pointed (pectoralis insertion, legs...) and worked a bit on the face and some asymmetry details.



Here's more pics of the reference I gathered.

At this point I think I might look into other anatomy resources, I feel like I hit a wall regarding what can I achieve with my current knowledge. It would also be cool to get one of those ecorchés figurines to have in hand and physically check the body anatomy.

carvuliero

With few proportional changes maybe we can save this guy

You did pretty good with the torso why dont you find pair of legs and do the same for them