[WIP] Male anatomy - looking for critique

Dabou Master

Hey there,

So I'm really unable to get to the point quickly but I'll try to be as brief as possible (really nervous about my first topic, presenting how little I can do after many years trying to be good in 3D so bear with me, please ?)

So my aim, as of right now, is to create an "average" male base mesh that wil allow me to create a lot of other body types out of it (don't know if this makes sense). For that I don't want to go too much into details but not keep it low poly either. I don't know if it's a good idea, there are a lot of different workflows depending on the artist I guess, but if you think I'm going the wrong way, I'm eager to know. I've been going in the wrong way so many years, I really don't have any time to waste anymore.

So, I started to model a very basic mesh of a man with quite terrible face and not so good proportions (oh by the way, if nudity is a problem please tell me if I have to hide intimate parts) :

Maybe the picture is a little bit big, sorry if that's the case, I couldn't find a post with rules on how to post properly.

So the topology (and shape ...) might look quite horrendous but that's my way of working (and it's probably a terrible way of doing it so I will take any critique really), I will sculpt it right away with dynamic topology and try to get a way better looking mesh in terms of proportions.

Then I retopo everything properly for cleaner sculpt (that will work with subdivision sculpt this time), so the new topology won't be animation friendly. If you already have any opinion on my way to proceed please tell me. I'll keep the new mesh with eventually a little more new sculpted details as my real new base mesh. So the picture here is a base mesh of the future base mesh. Tell me if that workflow doesn't make any sense or is totally ineffective.

I already have one question if I may ask, but I guess I will quickly have some kind of answer on my own as I sculpt : is it a stupid idea to make the lips separate and yet "connected" (lips are intersecting a bit, so the mouth is closed but there is already some mouth cavity behind and everything) ?

Ok it's time to work on this I guess. Sorry if I was just barely understandable, even in my native language I'm generally very confusing, I'll try to improve clarity over time . Thanks for reading ! And if you didn't, thanks anyway ! At least you clicked on the topic ^^.

Dabou Master

Ok so I thought it would be a little bit easier. The face is horrible and few other parts like hands and feet but I'll improve this while adding more polygons.
It's really difficult to sculpt a man without a lot of muscles, I struggle with the shoulderblades and for finding good references of men who are not too muscular or too fat. Not too sure about the ribcage either, or the arms. Well everything could change but it'll improve when I'll have enough polygons for the small parts.

polypassion

Before you jump into sculpting full body it would be better to start with separate parts. So you sculp a hand, a nose, an ear and so on and research information and gather anatomical references for each part. Then you’ll look into proportional relationships of separate elements which’ll help you to construct an average male body. Learning anatomy and proportions takes time so don’t rush it.

Dabou Master

Hey thanks for the tip @polypassion ! I'll definitely do that (well at least I wanted to do that for the ears cause I was already feeling that it  would be a nightmare otherwise) for the facial parts that seems like the best idea for how bad I am at doing them.

As for the feet and hands, for instance, I did model them in a separate way (that's why they already had more detail than the rest of the body) but I didn't think of sculpting them separatly too. Just one question though : am I supposed to do all the part separatly THEN plug them in this body, or am I supposed to redo a total new body after making study of every part (or going back to finishing this body after studying the separate parts) ? The first basemesh was supposed to help me not go all wrong with proportions (like hands and feet are supposed to be in good proportions already, definitely not true for the head though) but I guess it doesn't show.

I've been studying anatomy for quite a while now but it seems that it doesn't look like it when analyzing my model ^^.

Well thanks again, I'll work feet for the next step (unintended pun) and post the progress here .

Tomorrow though, I need to spend some time off the screen, it has been weeks with this world situation.

kanga

Pretty good model. Here are some things that might help.

Use a free app like Daz 3d on a monitor next to your work screen. You can dial in muscularity, volume and weight variations, you can pose it and allows you to rotate around the figure while working.

Download a free .obj skeleton from the web and place it under your model for volume and position reference.

You can use Daz for creating orthographic view shots to place in your modelling app for reference planes.

The resolution of your model isn't important when you start. In fact sculpting with hi rez mesh looks easy in tutorials but its hard to achieve a smooth model with good proportions from the get go. You can get a better start (and eventually end) result by keeping the mesh low and pushing around bigger polys to nail the form before increasing the resolution for more detailed work. The model below has been edited a little in Blender for better flow and distribution. You can establish the figure quite well at this rez.

About the model you made above. The pose looks a bit rigid. You can relax the pose by lowering the shoulders at the biceps, pushing the hips forward just slightly and altering the balance of the spine in the side view. Also splay the feet out a little at the toes so the overall impression is more relaxed. This will make the figure easier to work on. The jaw needs volume and under the chin it looks like its receding up to the neck. The ref picks and the model skull will help you there, as well as where everything goes.

Character artists don't generally worry about genitalia, just the simple volume. Unless you are making medical models I wouldn't worry about it. Your limbs are missing characteristic curves and volumes, and your missing the rib cage at the back.

Hope this helps.

Dabou Master

Thank you very much @kanga for taking all this time to answer this topic !

A lot of good tips here. I'll try the Daz thing, I wanted to avoid to base my work on 3D models (each time someone model over an other model, there is a new interpretation, like the loss of sense when translating a text in different languages consecutively) but I guess it can't hurt if the models are accurate I guess, at least for the proportions.

I'll try to find a skeleton and see if it helps too. I totally agree that it's a mistake to push too quick into detail though I started with a quite lowpoly model before starting sculpting and adding features, I mean I'm far from detailing right now in my opinion but maybe I misunderstood what you meant. As I'm sculpting with Blender, it's often really hard to sculpt on a very lowpoly mesh, brushes have a little bit extreme behaviour (do too much or do nothing) that softens a lot while going into a heavier polycount.

Now for the critique of the model itself, well I see only good points. The shoulders seems effectively tensed, I couldn't put the finger on what was making my character so strange in here. As for the feet I didn't think it was important, I'll try to copy the way the characters hold in the pictures you shared. For the spine I'm not so sure what you meant, the guy is pretty arched on his lower back, maybe that's what seems odd to you, I'll try to see with the pose of the examples if I can improve there, but maybe it's the camera view that doesn't show my mesh properly and he looks unbalanced ?

Yeah I didn't work the face yet, it's a total mess, if only the jaw needed work ^^.

Yeah I'm doing the genitalia only once because I think it can't hurt to know how to do it properly. It won't take an incredible amount of time anyway. For the limbs I'm struggling to not add too much volume yet to have enough volume,but it clearly looks like the guy went through surgery and lost a few muscles in the process, I agree. As for the rib cage at the back, really good point, would have never thought of it, I'll try to get this part right even if I really don't know how yet .

Well thanks  a lot, I have a lot of work in front of me ^^.

I really appreciate your help guys .

kanga

Ah ok. I didnt mean model over the mesh. While that works great you cant learn much by doing that. Use the Daz figure as reference to copy from. I dont know what your setup is like but placing a monitor (even an el cheapo one) next to your main screen is really usefu for a case like this, and super for reference material display. Find the visual anchor points and try to do likewise. It isnt as easy as it sounds.

If your head is all over the place then putting up reference planes (for the whole figure) and a skull model under your model helps you judge volumes and position really well.

Yep its not easy to sculpt a low poly but using the grab brush in Blender should work finThe idea is to get a basic appealing form early on. Your base quad poly mesh looks fine as a starting point, its just that not everything is in the right place. Once again image planes in Blender should work great.

Dabou Master

Ok so I didn't want to write without having anything to show so it took time (and I don't even have something worth showing).

First off I understood that you were not talking about modeling over the mesh. My point, which might not be valid, was : when do you know you can trust the models of others ? As soon as you're working with another artist's work you are interpreting his own interpretation, so in the end there are 2 interpretations instead of one when using a photograph. So I used DAZ and of course models are looking clean and everything but how can you know you don't have to doubt the artist who made it ? That might sound arrogant, but that's just a genuine question I'm asking myself. As for the free skeleton I downloaded ... let's say it seemed very strange in some aspects (the feet were incredibly big for instance, but it wasn't that odd looking on the skeleton, but when trying to fit it into my model, wow that really felt wrong, there seemed to be some mistakes on the spine too). It pointed out a few interesting things though, but I think I prefer to just use a picture reference next to the model.

So, it took a lot of time, I went back to the begining and tried to fix the proportions and have a better base to start the sculpt all over again. Not sure the results are convincing but here are the progress anyway, I'll leave that as is for now as I won't sculpt it in the near future. Critiques are welcome though, I know the butt is really awkward looking but the topology is just a terrible mess in there and it will be fixed just by sculpting it as it will be only composed of triangles after that.

In the mean time I started to work on the feet and it's really hard to know if I'm going in the right direction. Switching between orthographic and perspective view doesn't seem to help either, but the perspective in Blender is quite unconvenient to use while sculpting, at least I'm not good with it, it seems like it's nearly a fish eye (really short focal length I believe ?) but I don't know how to change it for the user view ...

What seemed correct in orthographic view looks like distorted when in perspective view (everything shown here is in perspective).

Don't hesitate to tell me if something's wrong or if your eyes are bleeding . I will check the general shape tomorrow with a fresh eye and add further details after that.

kanga

Well somewhere I heard that the genesis series in daz are based on scans. No idea if that is correct but they look generic and correct to me. What methods you use are up to you but I find the method I described a perfect starting point.

Dabou Master

Thanks for the answer, it does look like it's scan based indeed. Combining the methods you gave helped me understand (or start to understand) a lot of things about how the face is built. It will take a lot of time before I can get my first, convincing, realistic face done. All the construction around the eyes (cheekbones especially and the eye cavity) is made of such subtle elements, it's almost discouraging.

I'm not quite there yet, I have a lot of features to study indepedently right now.

Dabou Master

Well it's not going too bad I suppose, it's quite a complex part. I now totally understand the "do separate parts first then do a full body", so many things to analyze and understand that a full body would see its parts rushed if I started with that.

Of course, critiques are more than welcome, if something's really wrong, or just wrong ^^.

Dabou Master

Ok here's the end of the journey of the foot. I don't think I can improve anything in here, I gave it my best. Not too satisfied with the bottom part (I mean the one that touches the ground, I don't know the name and really have no brain at all after finishing this foot) but it doesn't seem to me as the most important part anyway as it's quite uncommon to see it so ... Of course the toes should be touching each other but as I don't want to make the model totally screwed for eventual reuse or modification, I didn't stick them together.

If anyone sees anything that makes this foot really weird (and let's admit it, feet ARE weird !) critiques are more than welcome .

I guess it will be "hand time" by tomorrow.

Dabou Master

Hey there, the return of the chatty one (yes talking about me right there).

Except I won't be chatty this time cause it's late and I forgot to post my progress of the day.

So I did the hand, I'm not particularly happy with the posing but it's okay for a simple study I guess. It's still in a heavy refining details phase but I post the different steps so you can tell me (if you wish) if I went too fast into detailing in your opinion.

Some stuff might look really odd, I mean wrinkles are moving so fast with the simplest moves, I can never get the same wrinkles twice while moving my hand so ... Critiques are welcome though it will still change a lot finger-wise. Good evening to all ! (Well for me it's evening so good whatever to all then).

Dabou Master

Here we go, the hand is finished, I might say I'm a little bit proud of what I've done here. Tomorrow I will be totally ashamed of my model but it's usual ^^. I put the two phases of the day, if anyone see something wrong in my way of doing (or if it helps anyone who wants to sculpt detailed model parts, I don't know).

And a little close up on the details without smooth shading cause I feel a little bit arrogant today ^^.

Please tell me if you think something is wrong about this. Trying my best here but I just can't see the mistakes yet (might be some big ones I just lack experience I guess).

Dabou Master

Hey there ! Noone seems interested in what I do but I guess it's fair, it must be pretty boring to see another anatomy study ^^.

Here's the following though, trying to understand the ear's structure. It's pretty annoying as I'm just doing adjustments and undoing it just after it, I'm never satisfied with the shape ... If someone sees something really wrong about it I would gladly appreciate any comment. At this point I take everything, I feel really unsure about this one and I don't know if the shape is acceptable. I mean every ear is different from one another so it gives some kind of freedom I guess, so I would be happy even if it's to say that's it's ok and I can keep it this way ^^.

It's not finished yet but I will take a little break before finishing it as it seems that the hand destroyed a part of my "3D stamina", I'm just very very slow working on the ear and I don't know why (is this even a thing ??).

Thanks for the visit ! It's ok to just watch too .

vavavoom

Hi~

Don't be too disheartened you haven't got many comments in a while, @kanga posted pretty much what there is to say at this stage of your modeling. 
When you start to put all your further learning back together into a complete anatomy body sculpt again, and it's progressed from your first posts, i'm sure you'll see more comments and feedback~~

*also, have a try at a head sculpt, that always brings in some interest and valuable feedback.

keep going

Dabou Master

Hey thanks @vavavoom ! I'm not that disheartened, I take it as lightly as I can (I'm not helping much either as I don't feel legitimacy to do it, yet) but it's just that sometimes I'm thinking "I could be doing the worst garbage ever with terrible technique, would anyone tell me ?". Maybe it's because features are not that easy to critique when not on a full body and that's the proportions that are the only thing that matters. I don't know. I don't feel like I'm wasting my time though doing every separate part as advised before. Each time I learned something new, I just hope I won't forget everything until I finally go back to a full body ^^.

I'll do a head sculpt when I'll have done the ear/nose/mouth/eye part, but I don't feel comfortable going already with a face without knowing how to properly represent its features first.

For now I totally understand that my work is unappealing as hell, I just want to reassure myself by thinking someone will tell me if I'm going straight into a wall but I'm not sure anyone will though ^^.

Anyway thanks for the encouragement, it's much appreciated .

Dabou Master

Hey, it's been a while !

I just finished the last part I needed to figure out before trying to do a whole face. I don't think it's really useful to show that but hey I just wanted to say that I was alive (contrary to the SSD on which my OS was ...) !

It's not too great, not too terrible either and for the time it took me to get it approximately right, I'm now scared to do a whole face and to miss all the points I learned by doing all those features individually ...

Dabou Master

Ok I've been pretty damn slow on this one oO !

I guess I lost motivation at some point, studies aren't fun are they ?

So here are the progress I made, face is "done" in my opinion, but I don't know if anything's weird or not. To me it looks weird, but it's partially using my own face as a reference and I do have a weird face so ...

What do you think ? I mean except for the eyebrows which are an obvious placeholder, I wouldn't use sculpted eyebrows on "realistic" final product anyway. Mouth is slightly open, which might make the expression a little bit odd, but it's more convenient to sculpt it that way for now.

I will wait a little bit to see if I receive any critique advising to correct anything (or redo everything ?? Hope not though  ) and if not, I'll just finally start back to do the full body as initially intended .

Thanks in advance to anyone who would write any critique , I really need to know if I'm the only one to really see a weird face there ^^.

tysiu

The head looks stretched and distorted, do you have perspective on? Show it in flat view, it would be easier to see what's going on.
Motivation comes and goes, but don't get discouraged. Studies like this are important. You might not see it now, but it will pay off in the future.

Felixenfeu

Looks stretched and lack structure. Try to switch perspective on and off when sculpting. Most portrait photo are nade with long focal length lens and the wide angle perspective in most 3D software is very counter intuitive imo

I suggest you take a look at plates from Anatomy4sculptors and really try to nail those angle break and volumes.

Dabou Master

@tysiu : Yeah I've got perspective on, I really never know what to do with that. Some say it's mandatory to use the perspective all the time, some others to switch between perspective and orthographic (which I do, but not in a good way I guess). Fact is ... perspective is a mess ... First pictures were with a focal length of 60mm, I remade them by doubling the focal, hope you can see better what's wrong.

And thanks by the way ^^, not seeing too much people here (not complaining, just stating a fact ).

As you can see I put the left ones in perspective (focal length = 120mm), the right ones are in orthographic view.

@Felixenfeu : Ah this one is painful and I was expecting it ^^. I DID use exactly what you shared (thanks for that by the way, those are indeed great ressources and helped me understand structure and see it a lot better), so I don't think I could really improve at exploiting those as I already do ...

But if I could say anything about it is, I'm not sure it "lacks" structure, I would say my face lacks structure ... I had a lot more "bumps" (would I say), or relief in the face before I tried to match my face better (which is pretty inconvenient now as I can't show my face so you could see if I'm really that featureless in reality ...). I was about 29 in the pictures I used and I really don't have much detail in the regions around the eyes or the relation nose/mouth ...

Does this look like a wrong representation of a human face ? Or does it just look like an uninteresting piece of human face ? Because I would be totally ok with the latter ^^.

Ah ah, I really feel bad now ^^, I was expecting it but I didn't think of what I could do to correct the problem if the problem is me not using ressources the good way ...

By the way, don't you think the example of face of anatomy for sculptors has really, REALLY strong features ? I mean when I copy it it looks good nearly instantly, but when trying to put skin on it to match my face it ... does ... not ^^. I have to weaken the features a lot to have some kind of resemblance ... I even let more features than my face really have. Ah what a mess XD.

Alright one last question, when you say lack of structure, is that bone-related or muscle related on this one ?

Thanks guys, both of you, I'll try to see what the hell I have done wrong after a short break, I can't see anything right now.

Eric Chadwick

These are coming along great. I think these two topics might help you:

• Why you're not getting any replies (to get more feedback on your work. involve yourself in the community more)
• Motivation is Bull

tysiu

I come from purely 2D background, so perspective throws me off. I cannot sculpt a face when it's on.
As for the face it's fine, it's just super stretched. It has nothing to do with your personal features

I've made some quick adjustments in photoshop to show you what I mean.

I made it wider, moved the whole eye area down (I check that with ears, the top of the earlobe should be on the same line as eyebrows). I spread the eyes a bit more apart, and widened the lip corners (I check that with the iris of the eye, same thing, they should be on the same line or slightly shorter). You said the eyebrows are a placeholder, so you might change them later, but I would suggest to bring the outside corners up a bit, coz now the are kinda sliding down to the eye.

Similar thing with the profile. I moved the eyes down, eyebrow up, pushed lip corner deeper into the face, squeezed the scull and lifted the nostrils. You can bring the eyebrow bone out and nose in and enlarge the chin for a more "chiselled/manly" look, but that's up to you.


In my opinion you're doing fine. Just remember to check the proportions and compare them to other elements. And when in doubt ask people around. Sometimes when we spend a lot of time on one thing we stop seeing it properly, and we need a fresh eye to spot some bits that are off.

Dabou Master

@Eric Chadwick : thank you, I was already aware of the first link (that's also why it took me many years before even daring to post anything. When about to show my work, I'm beyond shyness), I will definitely look at the second one though .

@tysiu : Well thank you very much for your help ! And your time ! I wanted to return the favor but I don't even understand what kind of feedback I could bring you XD. I saw your art on arstation by the way, it's really looking great !

Ok now I understand what you meant by "stretched", I definitely must have done mistakes by relying too much on perspective I guess. I'll try to change that, though your final result looks very wide to me (maybe my eye doesn't see properly volume ? That's a scary thought) now I know what to look for, that's really a great help. Just comparing with the pictures you shared, it seems that you've widened the mouth a tiny bit too much (it looks like the start of a smile to me), but I guess proportions vary anyway from one individual to another. Maybe I'm just scared of doing too much each time, I don't know. In the side view the lips I made are very wrong I must admit, I will try to improve this too, the mouth really is a tricky part isn't it ...

When I said the eyebrows were placeholders, it was just to notify that yes they look awful and I don't intend in improving them (as this face will never be used in anything else than study, I won't replace them at all) but they should be well placed anyway. So I will definitely change their position as you were totally correct and even my references don't have those eyebrows falling on the eye like that (especially striking on the side view), so it's totally my mistake ^^. In the first place I just did put eyebrows because a face without eyebrows is really really strange to look at.

The nostrals are badly put I noticed that before posting the face first time, but you saying it will be a great reminder anyway ^^.

As for the eybrow bones, that's where my featureless face strikes in ^^. I appreciate that you stress on the fact that it's just a personnal preference. As I want to create in the end a very average man (with really no "alpha" or very "manly" features) I won't put a more "heroic" look on this face. Actually that's why I used my face as reference, we can see everywhere big muscular guys and incredibly sexy girls when browsing through 3D content. Even when looking at charadesign of supposedly average characters, they're generally more muscular and defined than most sportsmen in the real world (not talking about champions there). I agree it might not sound sexy or interesting but I'm really putting efforts at trying to represent a really "unspecial" guy, the one you would never notice.

Once again, thanks a lot for your time and your help, it really brings a lot of things to think about, I really need to pay attention to this perspective thing before I take really bad habits.

Eric Chadwick

One thing about using yourself for reference... It's impossible to get a low-perspective view of yourself in a mirror. You would have to put the mirror across the room, and use binoculars.

Dabou Master

Oh I have pictures of me for reference made by a friend who was supposed to know what he was doing (not really in this field though so maybe every picture I have of me is already unusable I guess). But I agree I don't really know how to treat perspective as information ... That's really a tricky point but I never really heard of it as a big problem more than "it looks weird", so I never put too much thought in it. Big mistake apparently.

So best workflow would be to use longest focal possible both in 3D and reality when trying to create reference ?

I'll try to check if I find anything useful on this particular topic cause I'm clearly completely clueless in this and it would logically ruineverything I could try to make ...

Thanks, that brings a lot of interesting questions.

Dabou Master

Hey there !

So after a break with 3D (and computers) I'm coming back to try to finish this anatomy study !

I worked, I think, most of the mistakes that were here but I might have made some new ones in the process. I plan to keep working on it tomorrow but if someone sees something strange or odd or ... disgusting ? Help will be more than welcome, even a single word can help ("lips" "mouth" "eyebrows" whatever I'll know that a problem is there). For now all I see, the worst part is the nose in my opinion, I work on it and am never satisfied of what it looks like in the end. As for the rest I think I made progress.

I changed the matcap to see if I can better capture what's wrong on the face. The most disturbing point is that it seems like a new man entirely compared to the previous face ...I guess it'll take a huge amount of time before I can give the face I want. But for now I'll be happy with just a generic face, whatever the guy looks like.

Thanks in advance.

Dabou Master

Ok, I think it's done ! I mean the face at least.

I tried to improve as much as I could but I don't see any other way to improve anymore. So as improvement is always possible, I guess I mostly just can't see problems anymore.

If no one sees anything that's too wrong to keep it that way, I will call it done and do what's next : the full body ! (funny how scary it seems now compared to the beginning of this topic when I was pretty confident ...)

tysiu

Great progress, glad you kept working on it. The face has now much more relaxed, neutral expression. The nose and lips look so much better than before.

carvuliero

I love finished pieces

Dabou Master

Wow, how did I miss your two posts is beyond me oO.

I was having quite a lot of things to think of out of 3D so I guess I forgot to check the forum for quite some time ... Didn't think I posted my results so long ago though. My apologies for the late answer.

@tysiu : Hey happy to see you're still around here ! Thanks for the comment, glad you see progress in my work ^^. I'm not always so sure I get in the good direction. But apparently there's still a lot of work to be done. Damn !

(By the way your latest work in here seriously gives me the creep, I'm not even able to watch it ...)

@carvuliero : I've been waiting for one of your comments since the beginning of this topic ^^. You seem to be quite a specialist in this field (I mean human anatomy) so I guess I was too far away from good forms for you to be able to correct it I guess. Well I hope it goes that way, that would mean I'm getting closer to a good result. Hope these critiques don't take too much of your time to make cause it certainly look like it does.

When you say you love finished pieces I guess it was sarcastic to mean that I'm far from finished on this face ?

Anyway, I think I understand most of what you're saying (not being a native english speaker might not help me in some places I guess). What I retain from all this is mostly that the face has no manly enough features, I was fighting against it until now but I guess I will stick to what you all say and will do whatever I want when I'll be able to do at least one regular face first (sorry tysiu, should have listened to you earlier ^^).

So I could ask a lot of things that are not too clear for me but I will spare you and try to understand on my own as I have books to help me (anatomy for sculptors, to name it), I hope I will be able to correct everything.

I've got a feeling that it's not gonna be easy ^^.

Thanks for your help guys, it's much appreciated. I should be working back on it in a week or two. Have a good day !

tysiu

I'm always here, just busy with a big project I set for myself haha
There's always more work to be done, I've checked my first works from few months ago, and I'm going to redo some of them, because I can't look at them anymore.

(By the way your latest work in here seriously gives me the creep, I'm not even able to watch it ...)

I'll take it as a good sign. I really enjoyed working on that creep, but even I was spooked out by it at nights.

Dabou Master

Ok, I'm clueless right now, it's really hard to know if I'm going the right or the wrong way so here are the recent progress :

So in the things that were done :

- accentuation of planes for the forehead (really not sure I did not destroy everything ...)

- thickening of the neck and rework of the muscles + collar bones (kind of) added

- slight rotation of the ears to not be straight

- rework of the eyes (bigger + rounder + a little bit deeper in the cranium)

- rework of the chin (wider, goes farther in the front) and the jaw (made larger and more square)

- back of the neck (more noticeable angles)

- rework of the nose, pretty sure I messed up once again ...

- tried to put more volume in the cheekbones to have less of a flat face syndrom

- smoothed out the lower lip in its corners

Ok @carvuliero I really don't know where I'm going right now. I tried to follow your instructions but often I didn't understand them (for the semi cycle part of the cranium for instance) or I couldn't figure out how to correct (adding the transition from fat to bone on the cheekbones) so ... Is there any improvement at all ? That's even depressing to actually ask this question as it only means I don't have the proper eye to see when things are getting better or worse. All I've seen is the head turning alien in some kind of way, so I don't perceive it as reality or I don't perceive reality as I should ...

Future doesn't seem bright ...

carvuliero

Is this still you ? and whats will all this doom gloom and pessimism  ?

If you cant tell if its better or worse then maybe its in "maybe" state I suggest you clearly define goals for this piece when will be ready how would you know if its done ? You could move things around forever and still not be satisfied with it so decide what the point of this head set few goals for yourself this way you be able to keep track of your progress [I can give you a simple example lets say Id like to have proportional head with close enough features placements to some ref or Id like to sculpt correctly 9 major forms of the face ]

Just to ease his pain a bit

stevston89

You are definitely working with way too much detail. Drop down and focus of broad forms and bone structure. It is easy to add detail once you have all of the structures and forms in place. It is super hard to add structure after you have detailed. 

Dabou Master

Hey there !

No I wasn't ignoring anyone's piece of advice, I was actually scrupulously trying to use them as effectively as possible.

First off, of course @stevston89 you were right about the amount of details. I just wanted to finish this quickly so I could go to the next step so I didn't want to redo too much. But I guess that's a common mistake that we all do from time to time.

I destroyed quite a lot of detail to focus on the main shapes, I hope it paid off.

@carvuliero : well Thanks again and this time I might say you helped me tremendously ! It took me a while to understand all you mentionned, to see things I couldn't see yet. Well I definitely hope I understand better the structure of the face though I feel less and less confident as I write those lines ...

(And to answer the question about the doom and gloom and pessimism, let's say it's hard to be optimistic when you see that everyone can see your mistakes except yourself. The knowledge wall is more intimidating than the technical wall in my opinion).

 So I redefined my goals (still not clearly though, I don't know if "I want to build a very generic face, like young ectomorph based on a few refs" is valid), I searched for new references, took measurements (in the worst way possible at the beginning ...) and achieved this ...

Shapewise, I'm way more satisfied than I was before, it looks way more like what I had in mind in the very beginning, though I really don't know if it passes the test of accurate anatomy for the specialists in here. I really do hope so, I put (really) a lot of efforts into it.

Don't hesitate to destroy my work, I'm here to learn !

Thanks in advance for any comment that could be made .

carvuliero

I heard quite a few artist talking about their "shadow figure" , its set of general proportion/relation that you can always rely on also compare everything against so you have some limitation to know if what you have could be believable .Maybe start with that learn idealized proportion of Loomis or Bammes they are simple enough or I can give you mine its a bit more stuff but it makes your life easier This data base of knowledge is dynamic and constantly evolving so you can create your own perfect proportions and change it along the way but first you have to start somewhere so pick one that is already made

I see you have trouble understanding my scribbles so I add some notes this time \

LOL forgot note about the ear in side view so hole in the middle[concha] is usually 1/3 of whole[book knowledge] most of the time slightly larger[me analyzing bunch of ears] ,your was huge its reduced to acceptable size

Thicker eyelids are always better

Dabou Master

Hey there !

It took me way more time than I expected (or at least hoped) to try to correct all those things.

So first off @carvuliero thanks again for all your help, I really appreciate it (well I hope you knew that before I say it ^^). I first kept the biggest proportions and tried to correct the points you mentioned.

I kept those proportions at first because I was confused when you mentioned Loomis, as I was already following his ideal proportions (not too close but pretty close) as show here (maybe you will see if I completely missed something and failed totally)

Then I spent way much more time doing the second version with a lot bone crushing to reduce the size of his skull (the little guy must really hate me by now). Doing so I broke a lot of things and it took quite some time to get it to look a little bit humain again.

I reworked some parts and I hope I didn't break more stuff than I repaired. To me the two versions look okay-ish, I couldn't tell, I spent a lot more time on the second version so some parts should look more polished on this one but as I changed quite some stuff I really don't know if it's not just garbage in the end.

What are your idealized proportions ? If I understood well with experience you've made your own ? Well if that's the case I'm pretty interested in learning more about it .

carvuliero

Ok this guy is starting to look like a human maybe change few more things and let him rest .Question is can you doing again ?

It looks more like alien technology then proportional chart but you ask for it 

Dabou Master

Hey there !

So I corrected the face, at least I tried, I don't always understand your corrections @carvuliero so it's a lot of guess work (which is not a bad thing in a way since it incites me to understand what was wrong instead of just being told exactly what to do) so I'm not sure I did well. I'm still not sure about the underplane of the jaw ... I mean I'm not sure I understood you properly and I'm not sure I guessed what you meant so ... I did my best though.

Then I tried to fork the model again following your ideal proportions and I made a big mess I think I've definitely NOT understood how to properly use them (and I was pretty tired so I didn't spend too much time as it was depressing to make another alien face, once again). I didn't have the courage to go further and try to correct it as I'm pretty sure I'm doing something completely wrong somewhere in the process. Here's the monster ...

I probably need to start from scratch to change the proportions now, it gets really depressing to break this face again and again. But maybe you see where everything started to get wrong ? I definitely missed something ...

By the way, is it normal that the more subtle the work gets (when I have to move kind of slight detail) the more exhausting it gets ? Or am I getting sick ? ^^

Well sorry for not doing justice to your ideal proportions (yet) and thanks for your help and your patience through the whole process. It must get tedious at times ^^.

stevston89

Structurally there are a lot of things off here. Use the ear hole to ground the structure of your skull. Right above your ear hole sits the Zygotmatic (cheek) bone. You can draw a straight line from above the ear hole and connect the bottom of your Orbital (eye socket). You can extend an angled line (how angled determine the size of your cheek bone) from the ear hole to reach the bottom of your cheekbone. If you draw a straight line there it should also line up with bottom of your ear lobe and the bottom of the hole of the nose. If you draw a straight line up from the ear hole you should reach the highest point of the top of your skull. If you extend a line back from the ear hole you should reach around the lowest point at back of you skull near where the Trapezius connect. Your Sternocleidomastoid is way too big, it should be mush thinner and connect right behind the ears.  Your orbital is a bit small and does come back enough from the side, which making the eyes feel out of place. Your nose is sitting too low. The shape of you skull is off. The Zygomatic is too angled inserts in the wrong place. Your ear needs to come forward a touch and needs to be reshaped. You are missing the volume from the Masseter muscle on your jaw. The is an odd dip in your jawline that shouldn't be there. Your temporal lines is a bit high. I did a paintover on some of the structure Red = Zygomatic, Blue = Nose Hole, Yellow = Orbital, Green = Sternocleidomastoid. Here is some good images of the skull as well so you can see some of the structure I am talking about. Oh yeah your model is really lumpy still I would drop down in resolution again and work only on the structure. Hope this helps.

Dabou Master

Finally !

This face is becoming a nightmare to correct ^^. I tried to correct everything but each time I find some improvement that could be cool, I generally destroy everything of the things I had just corrected ... It's like I shouldn't think by myself and just keep you guys telling me what to do. It would be a drag for everyone ^^.

Anyway here's the monster :

@stevston89 if you pass by, I'll be more than happy to know if I corrected the things you noticed that were off precedently, or if I failed miserably as it happens to be the case a little bit too often .

Oh and thanks for your tips on how to spot some structural points on the skull, it's easy to learn and remember and I don't doubt it will be helpful ... like forever . I fear though that I might have corrected some stuff and then broken it again as I said earlier so I'm not not listening, I'm really trying but ... well ... I try to make this knowledge my own and I tend to just make a lot of mistakes doing that ^^.

@carvuliero thanks again, a lot, again ^^, for taking all this time to help me. I tried to inspire myself with the example you gave me but I ended copying it more than I should I fear ... Well except the mistakes of course, those are MINE ! ^^

I lack subtlety so much when it comes to this face that I can spend hours working on a part to finish exactly at the same point from where I began. I guess it's just practice for that, this piece will never look good, but "ok" would be already great ^^.

Well tell me what you guys think of it (if you have time and motivation to do so of course ^^).
Any critique's welcome .

carvuliero

Dabou Master

Hi there !

Not really satisfied because I spent a lot of time on it and it's getting really hard to keep motivation working on it so I need some expert eyes on it ... please ?

I let the shapes a bit rough to not waste time and focus on their positions, not sure if it's getting better. I spent quite some time to understand the nose, I think I get it now (you tell me @carvuliero ^^). I reshaped the ears a bit tried to make them feel right but I'm not so sure. I think it's getting better though. I think there's something wrong with the mouth/nose relation but I can't put my finger on it (if that expression works in english ...). Otherwise I fear I badly understood the rhythm concept in general and didn't respect it properly on the nose and cheekbones / mouth corners/ chin line (which is not a line, I know).

I could use some good news but I will be glad with the usual either .

Please keep the critiques coming even if I understand that might be really boring to follow me in this process.

Oh I nearly forgot. carvuliero, my way of measuring is rather simple and precise I think, I actually make a cube around the skull, then I split it in any measures I need (half, quarter, etc.). I tried it then on your image to see what's wrong with my way of doing it (I did it multiple times to be sure, I really wasn't confident ^^). It gave me this (the model on the left is the old one, so it's not corrected yet, the right one is your picture where you put the corrections, obviously)

Apparently you took your measurements slightly differently than mine. On your picture the midline tend to be on the bottom part of the eyeball (the visible part obviously) when mine tend to show that the midline is on its upper part, hence the eyes too low on my model I suppose.

So I guess the only real difference here is a different appreciation of the measurements based on experience where you know where to put the eyes to make them look right while I don't. I mean that's the only answer I found.

I realize that I haven't understood your explanations on the bony chin and the top of the head, I'm sorry ...

kanga

The overall form looks much improved. The sculpt is quite lumpy tho. It looks like you are stuck on a high resolution base. I get that its hard to continue with the one subject. Might be time to up your skill by starting with a fresh low poly base. Experienced artists publish tutorials starting from a high rez form. I dont think that is a good method for beginners, which by your own admission is your case.

I think you would benefit by producing a number of figures. Try and mix between male and female and try master a generic form first as that is an excellent base for any character.

carvuliero

Hes groaning and moaning but keep going ! Can a passion for something overcame bad habits obviously can ,Yeah its not perfect but its in pretty good place , most things are in their place , proportions "works" and forms are in acceptable range[checks are a bit questionable ] .Of course he will need a new eyebrows and some polish but as structural sculpt I think it has exhausted its usefulness [suggestion by kanga is pretty good] I think ppl can learn a thing of 2 from you like everyone can learn to sculpt if they really want to

One friendly advice the sooner you start believing in yourself and your abilities the faster you are going to progress and  of course every time you wash your hands or teeth or what ever check yourself in the mirror you might learn something , I guess that's 2

Dabou Master

Hi there !

So I listened to both of you guys and I think it's time to work a bit on new faces. I plan, you tell me if my idea is stupid, to do this base kinda quick, then copy it six times and do like 3 men's face and 3 women's face.

I'm not planning on being all about precision and details, but trying to master good shapes and also to learn how much a face can differ from one another.

At the same time I'll work a bit on the full body (just to not become completely crazy about faces).

@kanga : I don't know if the model was so high resolution, I think it's mostly because of the dyntopo artifacts with some triangles not really well placed and me being a bit lazy with the smooth brush as I didn't want to erase some details some times. I took a screenshot of the wireframe so you can tell me if you think it was too high.  (the sculpt model has 226 562 triangles, which doesn't sound excessive to me but I agree it's a bloody mess though).

I'm really interested in your opinion in that matter as I might be doing something not right. As I totally agree on the "don't start with high resolution if you're a beginner" (which I'm not really in sculpting but definitely in human anatomy) but I did start with really low poly model and progressively made the polycount higher. The problem with working with dynamic topology is that it's kind of a destructive workflow compared to the multires way of doing it (subdivisions where you can go back and forth with the resolution). I think that dyntopo gets more easily a messy result with the smooth shading too, hence (maybe) the lumpy aspect ?

I'll work with subdivisions when I'll have a good basemesh (which is the point of all this work, having in the end a strong full body basemesh).

@carvuliero : I have to admit I complain a lot all the time it's a way to release some steam you know, but I guess it's annoying to read sometimes. Your advice have been invaluable from beginning to end and I can't thank you enough for that, you're the best man !

As for the rest I'm touched by your last comment, it's heartwarming, I have hopes to become a little bit better and a little less whiny ^^.

Yeah I took the habit, unconsciously, to watch every structure detail I can on every face (mine in the mirror, others in real life or movies) and I learn some things from time to time .

Ok so back to the newborn, I don't know if I'm doing the right thing but it seems like a good idea right now.

As for a begining I feel like I don't get the right shapes for the skull (upper part), it's too blocky or something, I feel like I have to make it more round but some books (from the same author) show as much squary skull as round skull, I don't know where to go from there. I never fall on the same reference, it's like two different schools. I made a way shorter neck, I don't know if I made it too short for a start, at least for male, for female I would definitely put a longer neck.

The temporal lines are way too obvious but it's just for the start and I think I didn't place them well on the side view.

The mandible seems a bit off too, I will get some reference to make up my mind about this.

If you have any suggestion about my idea of training or any advice, I'm of course eager to hear from you .

Thanks for your help guys !

carvuliero

It will be even better if you sculpt 6 heads from scratch 

Looks like you find a better way to let the steam out by critiquing your work and not yourself -> first step to mastery

About the new head it can be improved by slightly longer neck or lower trapezius placement also if you not sure where to put clavicle and scapula add simple oval for rib cage use it to correctly place shoulder girdle and then cut the excess you will end up with perfect shoulder

This is one of the problem of doing fragments they still have to relate to the whole even the rest is not there

Top of head in front could have a better shape if you want pointy head check the Rock for rounder tripleH who said that wrestling is waste of time you could learn anatomy from it

kanga

Yeah your mesh isn't that dense. It's just my opinion, but if you are not familiar with anatomy then its way easier to get a smooth and expressive result by staying in quads, even for the whole process. You will be surprised at how many times you go up and down in resolution to 'tweak'. I'm with carvuliero on doing whole figures to get a handle on the entire story. One way to go forward would be:

1/ Finish much earlier.
2/ Concentrate on generic figures first.

3/ Swap male to female figures each time (alternate between the 2).

4/ Once comfortable, include children and old people into the mix. So 6 possible subjects, but always generic and always alternate.

5/ Once comfortable' include variations in height and body type.

This is just for personal development practice. When you get a commission the rules go out the window and you can grab a finished figure and alter it.

Dabou Master

I fear that I got back into the first problem I met when making a face, it seems this one is too narrow. (the sculpt is at about 74k triangles for now)

I actually took the Rock at main inspiration for this one, as you adviced @carvuliero but I struggle to find him in an emotionless state (how strange right ? ^^) and specially in plain front, which made me make is face not large enough I think. I'm not sure I respected the base proportion of a skull, this one feels stretched a bit on the height (probably the lack of width).

I don't know why but this one makes me think of an angry yakuza ...

Mouth seems not wide enough too, so yeah, still thinking I did some stupid thing with the whole face width.

Eyes make me struggle a lot, though the expression is not as wrong as when working on the previous face.

Tried to do the good clavicle with basic rib cage and shoulders (well ... ugly spheres ^^) but I messed up big time by making the face part full quads (as advised by @kanga ) before merging everything ... so it will stay isolated this time and the good collar bones will be for the next one :swe:sweat_smile: . The overall topology is a bit messy and could lead to a bit of a lumpy effect but I haven't smoothed anything yet anyway. I will improve the technique overtime, as I have six entire faces to make .

By the way, Kanga, what do you mean exactly by "generic" ? You mean that I should alway start with the shapes of the everyday man (or woman) before getting into more unique shapes (like real people) ? Because then I'm going the opposite of what I should and I don't want to slow my progression. Otherwise, if you mean starting with basic shapes I thought it was what I did with the kind of skeleton.

So yeah I'll keep working on this and try to fix all my mistakes. Thanks for your help guys .