NEWBIE doing Daily Head Sculpts for 30 days.

seigearts

hello guys, i am rather new on these forums as well as in 3d art
In fact this is my first art related post.
I am taking this 30 day head sculpt challenge as a means to learn overall head structure and anatomy, and Male/Female variation.

Any critiques or suggestions would mean a lot.

This is the first sculpt i did today without any references ( will use for upcoming ) as a means to gauge my current understanding of things ,Ignore the chest and neck part please.
planning to learn a bit of skull structure and planes before tomorrow's sculpt.

HEAD SCULPT (1/30)    (sculpted in zbrush in perspective mode.)

( the plan is to learn to sculpt head (without minor details) by the end of September. After that, learn to sculpt body parts in isolation or full body sculpts in oct ....then go into full body sculpts practices and adding details n all, am already leaning basic anatomy from proko's channel and some books.
after 4 months and 122 sculptures.....I think i should be able to get into working on my own BASIC realtime game character projects that resembles human beings at least.....learning other stuff ( maya, UE4, Substance) along the way.
pardon me for any writing mistakes.

Thanks for reading.

seigearts

(2/30)
Figured following step by step sculpting tuts isn't my thing..... listening to music while just going at it is much more fun...
Couldn't study head anatomy though.

Temppe

Yo, I remember going through this exact stage a number of years ago. Someone on CGTalk gave me a great suggestion, which is to ignore features like the lips, nostrils/tip of nose, eyelids and ears. Focus on proportions, then planes, and only when you've really nailed them should you begin to worry about features. I know it sounds strange to say you should practise by doing earless/eyeless/noseless/lipless busts, but it works.

Some years ago I was able to purchase Kingslien's Head Anatomy course, which was a part of his Anatomy 2.0 course that was available on its own, for pretty cheap but I can't seem to find it online now. If you can get your hands on it you should - it helped me a LOT with this sort of stuff.

kanga

Another thing that helps is to find a low poly skull (male/female) on the net and import it into your scene. Then turn on transparent while sculpting it will provide a great roadmap for positioning and base proportions.

seigearts

@Temppe Thanks for the advice....I tried doing some proportion head sculpts and plane sculpts after learning some head anatomy.(although planar one's didn't go so well).....couldn't find kingslien's course anywhere though.

kanga said:

Another thing that helps is to find a low poly skull (male/female) on the net and import it into your scene. Then turn on transparent while sculpting it will provide a great roadmap for positioning and base proportions.

this helped a lot....thanks.....will solve the problem to find bony landmarks ( on whole skeleton) for origins and insertions as well.

(3/30).......
2 examples from multiple proportion sculpts i did today (a little too close to skull proportions i presume)
absence of muscle anatomy knowledge seems to be a major issue right now.

is it just me or the typing box works like command prompt here?.....cursor replace next alphabet if typed something in between sentences,

seigearts

Used some heavy reference this time........
(4/30)........

supposedly same female below

Ashervisalis

Hey, for a few days, sculpt skulls. Learn facial bone structure before adding the muscle, fat and skin. I also think you're going way too high poly. You could keep the poly count super low while you're trying to get the forms down.

seigearts

Ashervisalis said:

Hey, for a few days, sculpt skulls. Learn facial bone structure before adding the muscle, fat and skin. I also think you're going way too high poly. You could keep the poly count super low while you're trying to get the forms down.

Understood......although i did try sculpting skull, but failed miserably (will do from scratch again).....these heads i am posting here are 1-2 hour sculpts that i do at the end of the day...putting  inti whatever i have learned throughout the day.

About going high poly.......i am trying to learn sculpting and zbrush on general.....its been less than a month since i started sculpting so....rather new.

Thanks for the advise though.....

seigearts

Tried doing some skull sculpts

(5/30)

HarlequinWerewolf

I agree with Ashervisalis in that you're working too high poly. What I mean is that you want to work with a lower poly count while blocking in the shapes. I personally like to use Sculptris Pro to block in my shapes with a big brush using clay the build up and the move brushes mostly. This means I have a tesselated model that is generally low poly. Then I'll ZRemesh at a low count and build on my base shapes until I can't get any more detail. Then I can divide that topology and add more details and so on until I have a very high poly model. Or if you prefer using Dynamesh, keep your dynamesh number relatively low to block in your shapes then slowly increase the number to add more detail, as if you're using layers. At some point then you can ZRemesh and project your details from the high dynamesh object to something easier to push the detail with. 

I'm not sure if that entirely makes sense but here's a couple of screen grabs from some of my work. I use Sculptris Pro and decrease the brush size when I want more detail. You can see how rough the mesh looks using Sculptris Pro but I'm not worried about that when getting my shapes down.




Hope that makes some sense, let me know if it doesn't 

seigearts

Thanks for the insight @LeahMand for the examples.......
Dynamesh workflow seems to be my cup of tea.......although i did try sculptris but it will take a bit of time and practice to understand.........will definitely try in future though.
this is what i did for today's sculpt :
dynameshed (32, 64, 80, 104, 304 res) > zremeshed (20,635 active points) > projected details on low res one > subdivided for further detailing.
purpose for this sculpt was to  understand the general workflow.
I don't yet fully understand the underlying anatomy so steps may not look like much different.

will attach the steps and final result with active points and dynamesh resolutions.

Head (6/30).
Thanks for Reading.

Alex_J

Try working from a base mesh like this to start with. Only add another subdivision level when you cannot get anything more from the current one.

With topology like this, you should be able to get the important points of the skull structure down before going to higher subdivision level.

I don't recommend working with dynamesh as a beginner as it will confuse and stymie your understanding of how 3d works. Just my opinion of course.

seigearts

Alex Javor said:

Try working from a base mesh like this to start with. Only add another subdivision level when you cannot get anything more from the current one.

With topology like this, you should be able to get the important points of the skull structure down before going to higher subdivision level.

I don't recommend working with dynamesh as a beginner as it will confuse and stymie your understanding of how 3d works. Just my opinion of course.

I understand what you mean by that but the thing is, i have gotten quite used to using dynamesh in zbrush, although probably not to its fullest potential yet, but i do feel it will workout with time........
Another reason is that i need to start body anatomy sculptings by the start of next month and that base mesh subdiv approach is kindof , let's say constraining.....

although it's best to keep myself open to different approaches in the start I guess.....so I'll give it a shot as well.

Thanks for sharing your thought.

Ashervisalis

Keep using dynamesh, but dynamesh at a really low resolution. Aim for this resolution while working (maybe a bit higher to avoid issues when dymameshing);

wirrexx

Ashervisalis said:

Keep using dynamesh, but dynamesh at a really low resolution. Aim for this resolution while working (maybe a bit higher to avoid issues when dymameshing);

this !

seigearts

Tried going extremely lowpoly for doing some proportion studies........a bit harder than starting off with a bit mid range res i would say.
Starting dyna res - 8 ( poly 564).
 (7/30)
Unfortunately didn't had enough time left today to do one high res....will do two tomarrow to compesate for today.......Tired af after going through forearm muscles.

seigearts

(8/30)

Sculpted in lowpoly....subdivided for screenshot

seigearts

(9/30)
sculpted from memory......
settled down with 48 initial dynamesh res

most obvious issue i noticed at the end was the placement and size of eye ball, and how socket/muscles/fat reacts to it.....and then there are muscles and fat placements.....gotta study some anatomy i guess.

Carabiner

seigearts said:

Tried going extremely lowpoly for doing some proportion studies........a bit harder than starting off with a bit mid range res i would say.
Starting dyna res - 8 ( poly 564).

[image]

 (7/30)
Unfortunately didn't had enough time left today to do one high res....will do two tomarrow to compesate for today.......Tired af after going through forearm muscles.

This isn't low poly enough. Try half or a quarter of the amount of polys you're using here. Look how few are used in the skull example!

seigearts

I startd that sculpt at dynamesh resolution 8 and 564 polygons, blocked out the head nose and neck shape with that but was unable to add details like eye socket and mouth.....for that purpose i increased the resolution......that's what was in the screenshot.



Head sculpt (10/30)

Ears are imm brush ones ( altered a bit ).....

kanga

HarlequinWerewolf

seigearts said:

(8/30)

Sculpted in lowpoly....subdivided for screenshot

I wouldn't recommend subdividing just for screenshots. We want to see what your lowpoly looks like

seigearts

LeahM said:

seigearts said:

(8/30)

Sculpted in lowpoly....subdivided for screenshot

I wouldn't recommend subdividing just for screenshots. We want to see what your lowpoly looks like

Thanks for the info.....will keep that in mind for next ones

seigearts

(11/30)
Messed up proportions in this one.....
Can't get the planes right for some reason.......will try establishing planes first on low res sculpt. For next one

seigearts

Quick sculpt.......including  dynamesh stages in this one.....
Tried placing eyes a little more inside the socket,.......did't remesh and project on this one.

ChrisFraser

The mouth is looking too flat. In that low poly shot from your second last update it is completely flat. That area, under the nose is actually very rounded in real life.

seigearts

Looked at some skull variations for gender differences etc........
Although i tried to keep the skull in proportion while Exaggerating male features (zygamatic , chin, smaller lips) and keeping extra fat or muscles at the bay.........it still doesn't quite look like a male ( or female which is weird xD )........messed up eye placement again as well i guess.......

Kept an eye out for roundness of mouth area though ( didn't sculpt fat or muscle if that looks weird to ya...just smoothed the zygamatic bone part out )(13/30)

I think i will look at more skulls before going in and adding fat and muscles properly.

seigearts

(14/30)

seigearts

(15/30)

seigearts

(16/30)

CarlCraft

I think it's really cool you're doing this thread. It's suuuuper valuable even though it be hard to get critized daily for your work, but that's also why it's so valuable. Keep it up 

seigearts

@CarlCraft thanks for that, much needed.
........i understand there isn't a lot of progress on my side just yet to be able to get all of them critiqued.

Posting daily does keep me motivated though, especially in the time of learning anatomy.

I will be able to put in a lot more hours into it from next month, also the time when i start anatomy sculpts.

Its gonna be a 4 month sculpting spree,
I'm in for the long haul.

Ashervisalis

Have you watched any facial anamoty sculpting tutorials? There are loads out there. Watching them while doing your daily sculpts will help a lot.

seigearts

Ashervisalis said:

Have you watched any facial anatomy sculpting tutorials? There are loads out there. Watching them while doing your daily sculpts will help a lot.

i did watch some head sculpts but not any purely anatomy head sculpts yet (with muscles and fats), i have been using references up until now for that.........i will look for some anatomy one's though....thanks for the advice.


(17/30)

got no idea how it ended up with that weird smile.

Ashervisalis

I think you're missing a lot of muscle definition. On your next sculpt, make sure you have a 'muscles of the face' reference open, and sculpt the muscles and bone, not just the shape of the skin.

Carla

Your thread is really fun to follow, keep it up and study anatomy and block shapes like others said. My advice would be to try more exaggeration and also maybe some expressions because that will force you to think of the facial muscles in a whole new way. 

seigearts

Carla said:

Your thread is really fun to follow, keep it up and study anatomy and block shapes like others said. My advice would be to try more exaggeration and also maybe some expressions because that will force you to think of the facial muscles in a whole new way. 

Thanks for those kind words......makes me really happy to know there are people watching my progress as little as it may be.....
about the expressions, i had planned to include them in October sculpts after learning some basic anatomy.
and for exaggeration, i think i pretty much did in this one......although not too much....but i will try this in quick practice sculpts.

Ashervisalis said:

I think you're missing a lot of muscle definition. On your next sculpt, make sure you have a 'muscles of the face' reference open, and sculpt the muscles and bone, not just the shape of the skin.

i usually do have a muscle reference open, but struggle to show them on the surface as there are too many forms and variations due to fat and end up smoothing the heck out of it........so for a change i tried to use smooth as less as possible in this sculpt.....forms are a mess though.....will try again putting in more time.

(18/30)
was extremely short on time today.
exaggerated the little anatomy that i could.......and did some eye study (eyelid part).
dont mind the sloppy high poly as this was a rather quick sculpt.
ear is from IMM brush.

Ashervisalis

If you're struggling to show muscle forms, a good idea is to use clay buildup, and have your strokes start where the muscle would start, and end where the muscle ends. Slowly build up the muscles that way. And don't work on just one muscle at a time, switch back and forth, slowly building the muscles, then using the smooth brush to smooth them down a little.

This last one was really cool!! Probably your best so far. I've marked the parts which seem odd. The lower cheek sticks out like he has too much fat or muscle there, and you've got a bony ridge going from his cheek bone to his ear. I think you did really well on the silhouette and on various other parts of the face! The part below the lips could also be a bit more pushed in.

seigearts

@Ashervisalis thanks for pointing those mistakes out...........tried to work them out.

(19/30).......
used smooth too much again....guess i will change the shortcut for smooth for a little while.
took masseter muscle and salivary gland behind it into consideration....and that medial fat pouch thingy as well.
Ear was an IMM again (forgot to sculpt that on low poly version)

YTV

HI !
Cool thread ! I would recommend you to do the face of an old person I found it really helpful and do the face of Dwayne Johnson ( beacause of the shape and all ) I did that yesterday, I had a really cool result and I learn a lot of things ! and i dont know if it's have been mentioned but Anatomy For Sculptors is a realy good resource. 

Good continuation !

seigearts

YTV said:

HI !
Cool thread ! I would recommend you to do the face of an old person I found it really helpful and do the face of Dwayne Johnson ( beacause of the shape and all ) I did that yesterday, I had a really cool result and I learn a lot of things ! and i dont know if it's have been mentioned but Anatomy For Sculptors is a realy good resource. 

Good continuation !

thanks....guess i will give some old faces a try as well...didn't really gave much thought to age variation up until now.....i do use some references from this book, its good.


upgraded from a 5.5 inch graphic tablet to 16 inch display one (one by wacom --> huion kamvas pro 16) 
slowed down my sculpting speed quite a bit, guess it will take some time to get used to.

watching these screenshots made me realize the importance of looking from below as well.....kinda ignored that view while sculpting,
tried a new eye sculpting technique (sketching eyeball before adding the sphere).

tnx for readin.

slosh

I am definitely seeing improvement.  It still feels like you subdivide before you have proper forms.  Also don't use insert mesh for anything at this point.  It's way more important to block in all forms yourself to understand the anatomy better.  Start thinking about how muscles attach to a skull and how fat deposits between different muscles and the skull structure to form the shapes of the face.  Planes of the head is a great ref.  I think you should also consider just working on one head for a while and trying to improve it over time.  
  

seigearts

@slosh thanks for the tips.......working on controlling the polycount boosting whenever i reach the eye part of mesh.
Will avoid IMM now.
guess i will choose some celebrity's head as well for a side by side sculpt while working on improving overall head shape a bit more.
.
.
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(21/30)
probably gonna be short on time today so i did some quick skull sculpts looking at different references.
might do a head sculpt as well if i get some time in my hands

Ashervisalis

Keep it up!!!

slosh

I think a repeating problem I see is ur making the cranium too narrow.  All your heads seem to suffer from this.  I can even see this in ur recent skull...feels too narrow.

seigearts

slosh said:

I think a repeating problem I see is ur making the cranium too narrow.  All your heads seem to suffer from this.  I can even see this in our recent skull...feels too narrow.

Hey, thanks for the info....will address the cranial part issue before next sculpt.

seigearts

(22/30)
he was supposed to be dwayne johnson if you are wondering.
somehow ended with that weirdly sad expression.....that wasn't intentional.
guess i will sculpt him again.
still struggling with eye part
ignore the neck part for now please.

seigearts

orthographic view


(23/30)

seigearts

(24/30)
tried an out of memory sculpt.

Ashervisalis

I think you're making your eyebrow ridge too large at the moment. However, looking good! I'd like to see a few more women's heads.

seigearts

Ashervisalis said:

I think you're making your eyebrow ridge too large at the moment. However, looking good! I'd like to see a few more women's heads.

Hey, thanks for pointing that out....noticed that too.....it happens when I try to sculpt orbicularis occult muscle........followed a little different approach this time.

(25/30)

Rather than sculpting a skull shape and adding masses over it, I tried the approach most people use for this one......sculpting overall head shape and adding and subtracting masses.