Well done on studying, just wanted to say whenever you are completed with this way of doing things i found doing things like this helps much more (for me) & felt like adding it in as a possible option down the road to give a shot for you to decide which is best course of action when creating similar designs.
Though i took that process to the next level and did each muscle group so you can adjust sections to your liking or results expected. That is all no need to really address this comment otherwise.
All the best. hf.
Hmm, that would be worth trying. It seems fairly efficient, if a little clunky. I'll look into it.
It's been a little bit since I posted some sketches. I was trying to get the hang of legs, so I did a load more. I think I've worked them out now, though I should study a bit more to be certain. It turns out what was throwing me off were a few small muscles that I'd overlooked. That was fucking stupid. The last study I did doesn't look quite right, but I do understand the problem now, so it's not far off of correctness; I just decided to leave that one be instead of working more on it.
I also did some studies of feet; I'm not really familiar with them much, since they're rarely the object of my focus. They're probably the last thing anyone would look at on a character model, but I can't really bear the idea of making something decent and then shitting it up with bad, deformed looking feet, so I want to become skilled at them, too. But I need to work on something else. Arms are the last body part I don't really know much about or have skill at sculpting; if I can do them and hands alright, I'll only need to worry about heads, and then, in theory, I'll have a decent enough understanding overall to create a whole. Last time I tried it was just deeply insufficient...
Some sketches I've done recently. Apparently totally out of order despite the way I uploaded them. Oh well. I should revise the back muscles. Those aren't right.
That aside, I'm also studying the forearms. They're the last part I'm really awful at due to lack of knowledge. Got the extensors down. Just the flexors next.
Ah, Liefeld. Comic book fans in the 90s, I'm told, wanted their comics EXTREME and GRITTY and full of edge. Say what you will about Liefeld's anatomy and inability to draw feet, but the man was in touch with what they wanted, and he made a fortune back then by giving it to them. The existence of Image has been very good for American comics, too, though the whole medium in that country is still largely stuck in the superhero ghetto.
A few things I've done recently. Arms are really difficult. I should try to focus on the common masses instead of fixating on the individual parts, but I also want to know them properly and not just as vague shapes. I'm still sculpting at a low res to try to check that bad habit of mine, but it's a bit insufficient for capturing them. I think I probably just need to focus on making the impression of them good enough that if I resed it up I'd be able to start sculpting it into something better from there.
Speaking of difficult things, that part of legs there isn't great. I tried sculpting from a reference of a woman with more fat on her legs than I'm used to, so most of the things I was thinking about weren't very visible. That's something I should improve on, too. I think I spend a bit too much time looking at people with fairly defined muscles; it's good for anatomy practice, but most people's bodies don't look like that. I don't want to be the kind of sculptor that can only sculpt ideals.
Curious if you're referencing an Ecorche for these sculpts?
also hands and feet are the most difficult body parts to model let alone attempt enough finesse as an initial study.
Partly, but I tend to reference a lot more from photos. I found in the past a big problem I had was thinking too much about the muscles in isolation and not accounting for the many differences you get from skin and fat, so I try to look at photos of actual people more. I'm still not good at it, though. The way fat especially changes the forms is something I don't have a great grasp on.
Hands and feet are very hard. I've mostly left them fairly vague in studies I've done, since they could take up ages just by themselves, let alone when they're on a whole limb. But that's another weakness I need to fix.
I think there's definitely a competency applying skeletal & musculature fundamentals just by skimming through this thread though occasionally imo an errant proportional asymmetry would become apparent although minimal, when for example unifying the torso too either upper or lower limbs.
My background back in the day was both wet and dry traditional media, painting figurative portraits on commission so perhaps bit of a tip learnt via art school during life drawing classes in terms of building an observational skill recognizing proportion.
Anyhow as merely an exercise I'd suggest, roughly sculpt using simple shapes establishing the basic structure by positioning limbs and overall balance prior to adding detail plus further insight, when of course time permits.
I'll also recommend the published series by Andrew Loomis, which by the way are now free formatted to PDF particularly "Figure Drawing For All It's Worth" an artist still highly revered by many.
May seem on the face of it a tad oxymoronic, juxtaposing disparate disciplines but from my point of view regardless of ones interest, such accrued enlightened knowledge continues to retain artistic value.
I think there's definitely a competency applying skeletal & musculature fundamentals just by skimming through this thread though occasionally imo an errant proportional asymmetry would become apparent although minimal, when for example unifying the torso too either upper or lower limbs.
My background back in the day was both wet and dry traditional media, painting figurative portraits on commission so perhaps bit of a tip learnt via art school during life drawing classes in terms of building an observational skill recognizing proportion.
Anyhow as merely an exercise I'd suggest, roughly sculpt using simple shapes establishing the basic structure by positioning limbs and overall balance prior to adding detail plus further insight, when of course time permits.
I'll also recommend the published series by Andrew Loomis, which by the way are now free formatted to PDF particularly "Figure Drawing For All It's Worth" an artist still highly revered by many.
May seem on the face of it a tad oxymoronic, juxtaposing disparate disciplines but from my point of view regardless of ones interest, such accrued enlightened knowledge continues to retain artistic value.
That's definitely something I'd like to do, given the time and space. I'd quite like to try sculping with actual clay sometime, too.
I'll definitely look into those. The basic construction is still a weakness of mine, I think. Too much focus on details too soon. I've heard Loomis is one a lot of artists start learning from. I've also heard recommendations of...Bridgman or something, I think it was. I've never thought too much about them since they're 2D so they'd require a bit different implementation, but they should be just as applicable.
I'm quite stuck on my main project, so I wasted some time today working on a side project. I think I've finally got the hang of sculpting at super low resolutions, at least. I still despise the lack of clarity, though, but at least it's quick? Blurry as shit too.
There are faults there. Needs more work before it goes up a level. But need to put time tomorrow back into my main project.
Side project progress. Decided to shift it to miniature proportions; should've used them from the start really, since that's my aim, but I got carried away as usual.
Well, I'm having the shit kicked out of me today by a certain virus, so I did fuckall. This is about it.
Kudos!
I'm actually dumbstruck how people will continue to create whilst contending with illness and such - in a sense akin too suffering for ones art.
I'm just horrible at lying around doing absolutely nothing, haha. Fortunately I slept off the worst of it in about a day or two. Not quite 100%, but good enough to sketch at least.
I'm stuck on my main project, so I'm procrastinating by doing random studies again. Trying different techniques for a change of pace, and also because I'm losing my fucking mind. Perfectionism is a real bitch.
Unfortunately, I'm ill again, so this one is all for today:
Still ill. Maybe back to normal in a few days, so I just sketched a little bit.
Lately, I feel like I'm almost verging on competent, sometimes. But not close enough. Even if something is decent, as soon as I start worrying about clarifying it into something actually detailed and smooth, it goes right to shit.
Some stuff I sculpted for something. Ahh, they're not as good as I want them to be. I wish I had more time. Especially for that vargheist. I also wish my PC wasn't choking; I couldn't Zremesh for some reason, so I was stuck with dynamesh at points it really wasn't that suitable for.
I've been in a bit of a depression for a while and haven't made any progress on my main project. I've been procrastinating from it due to perfectionism. But after doing these I feel a little bit better; turns out I can sculpt a bit if I just push myself through it, or have a deadline. I'll try getting back to that main project soon.
I also think I had a bit of a breakthrough in my way of thinking about references and sculpting. Since I started thinking more about the planes and ignoring, to an extent, what they really look like, I've found it a lot easier to sculpt. Thinking of them as certain blocks and planes instead of anatomy is surprisingly helpful. It might be obvious to anyone with a brain, but for me, that wasn't something that came easily.
I'm also not as good at hard surface stuff as I'd like. I need to work on that.
Some random junk. One day I'll get a grip. I should probably spend more time on one of these and just turn it into a detailed study at some point. There's only so much you can practice at lower resolution when your targets are in detail, and the limited res is kneecapping (hehe) me at times. Well, it's all procrastination and despair anyway.
Some rare prop work. I really don't enjoy it, but I wanted to make something to get used to Maya. It's such a clunky piece of shit program. I just realised there's still some redundant edge loops I need to kill off. Ugh. That's what I get for being sloppy earlier on.
I really want to get back to my character project.
I haven't really been able to sculpt in some time. Or model, at that. Things haven't been going so well on that front. But I have a little time at the moment, so I'm trying. Lately, I've been trying to think more in terms of the planes of the body, rather than fixating on anatomy so much. If I can understand those and use them properly, then things should turn out better than just focusing on anatomy as anatomy. I'm still making too many fucking errors, though. Need to sort my time out so I can get back on track with everything.
Still no closer to ditching that perfectionism, though.
A little bit more playing with planes. They're very satisfying. Sometime when I'm actually competent, I should have a go at making some stylised characters that make a lot of use of them. I should also study the planes of the face more; I wasn't paying too much attention to them on that one, so it's a bit dodgy. The proportions are off, too. But it's a Sunday, I'm basically just playing with it right now.
I may have gotten carried away on that sketch. Only meant to do the planes for some practice, but I ended up sculpting it a bit more properly for like two hours more than intended. I may have stopped breathing while I was working on it. That's not healthy. But it's....Less dogshit than I expected. Not good, but not awful.
I probably don't need to sculpt in planes as much as I am, but they're just fun to play with. I'm also finding it's a good exercise for making me actually look at references sensibly. Look at their key shapes and plane changes and think of things that way, instead of fixating on anatomy itself. My problem has always been thinking of things too anatomically and not thinking like a sculptor, so I was never able to sculpt well because I'd rush in to do anatomical detail too soon instead of making the basics that will give rise to proper anatomy later. So it's good for training my brain to think that way.
That said, if I'm going to get carried away doing that kind of head, I should study up on actual head anatomy, too. I get the feeling I'd be more accurate if I was sculpting that knowing where all the fat pads are and understanding exactly how they influence the shape.
I don't need to be doing as many of these as I am, to be fair. It's just procrastination from getting back to other stuff. But today was a fucking shitty day, so fuck it. I don't have the energy for that. That last head is complete fucking dogshit, though. I swear that guy really did have a chin like that, but I fucked up on everything else, so it looks even weirder. Ahhh, I'm so stupid.
Loving these studies. It looks a lot like George Bridgman's stuff, deconstructing anatomy into planes and primitives as a way to see larger forms. Worth a look at his methods, even if in 2D it's still about thinking in 3D.
Loving these studies. It looks a lot like George Bridgman's stuff, deconstructing anatomy into planes and primitives as a way to see larger forms. Worth a look at his methods, even if in 2D it's still about thinking in 3D.
Yes! That's the kind of thing I'm going for. I realised one of, if not my biggest problem, basically, is focusing on the wrong thing. I have a lot anatomy knowledge if you want to talk about individual muscles, but that's essentially useless when sculpting because you have to do their basic forms first or you'll inevitably mess it up. Well, I did, anyway. Impatience is a killer. His construction is extremely applicable in both mediums, I think. His and Bammes are really useful references for how I can understand it on a more basic level; I'll definitely make more use of them.
Continuing focusing on the planes and construction a bit. Spent entirely too long on this torso; I'm extremely rusty at them, and I was never really much good at them in the first place, so it took a long time for what it is. It's a bit of Bammes, and a bit of my own observation. I can probably get away with simplifying the back a little more than I have, honestly; I tried marking out the trapezius' lower section, but somehow I feel like it doesn't quite work. I should probably also remember to mark that crease under the shoulderblades that you get from the serratus pushing up the latissimus dorsi. I could get away without it, but I like it and it's good to remember. I think I'll try doing a more muscular reference for the next torso; this guy was relatively normal, which is good for practicing standard types, but more exaggerated forms might be a bit reference for now.
This guy is seriously difficult. He's just got no shape....Not particularly fat, but little to no muscle to speak of, and so pale the lighting in the reference practically nuked what definition he might have had. In a word....Average. Which is good, because that's what I wanted to practice; it's no good only being able to understand the shapes of muscle men. But difficult. Nothing was quite as defined as I'd like for visibility, and with the amount of fat, the shape of the ribs and obliques were a lot less distinct than on the muscular guy, so I found it difficult working out just how to separate them to be just right. I don't think I got it quite right, but I do think I understand how I fucked it up, so my next try will probably be a little bit better. I ran out of free time today to work on it, so the back is basically not even started. That's a bad habit too, thinking about it; it's probably better if I follow muscles and groups round as I work, rather than doing a back and front as if they're separate.
Next one will be less shit. My understanding increased a little bit.
One bad habit I have - among many - is this annoying hyperfixation. When I know I'm deficient in something, I'll often hhyperfixate on it to the exclusion of other important things. For example, I was annoyed by a lack of clarity, and after seeing the way Eaton sculpted, I got fixated on that way of sculpting for the advantage of the detail you can get, without considering that it only works for him because he actually knew what he was doing, especially in regards to laying down the basic forms, whereas I was fixating too much on the secondary and tertiary elements. Or, I got frustrated after that because it became muddy and rough because I wasn't establishing the basics forms right, so I went the opposite way and got fixated on being as low poly as I could get away with, ending up not giving myself enough polygons to make the details I did need.
Right now, I've been fixated a lot on planes because I know they're a big weakness of mine, thinking too much about surface shit without establishing the planes all that is sitting on top of properly. But because of that, I've been thinking too much in sharp angles and straight lines, and haven't been paying the right amount of attention to the contours, which I think is one reason I'm finding torsos so difficult. I feel like I can get away with it more on a face - or perhaps, I don't know enough to know that I can't - but not thinking about those when studying torsos is really messing me up. I think I'm trying too hard to think about them in a planar way. It's stupid. I think I'll get it right if I can curb that bad habit. Marrying accurate contours and solid planes should yield a proper result.
I don't think that torso itself is terribly, but the back isn't good, and the bit that is decent-adjacent is seriously let down by the godawful shoulders and legs. Just awful.
Been practicing a bit more. It's irritating how much these things can vary from person to person due to individual variation in shape; it would be really convenient if everyone just had the same thing going. Still, it's a bit better. I realised one of the problems I was having - as usual - was getting carried away and not remembering to lay down some key things first, like locking in the overall shape of the pelvis before worrying about the obliques that are sitting on it. Idiot.
Anyway, I've been able to memorise them a bit more, which is helpful. Thinking in terms of planes and basic forms really doesn't come naturally to me; I'm all about the bones and the meat, so it's been taking a while. I'm sure from an outside perspective, it's quite laughable. But progress is progress. I still don't feel like I'm getting them quite right, though.
In Bammes' version, you make your ribcage with one main plane at the front for the sternum, then a small triangular part on each side that represents the part where the ribs connect. After that, he's content to let it be round rather than stressing about the rest of its planes, and you get this sort of isosceles trapezoid for the thoracic arch. I find that to be really awkward, so I've been doing my ribs a bit differently. Plus, it happens to be more accurate to the reference I used this time.
Anatomy for Sculptors' version is a bit odd; the way they use a plane on the side of the abs and just pull it in doesn't make sense to me; it doesn't seem to track given the shape of the obliques. But I tried applying it and for some reason it just seems more correct.
I think I'm getting a bit off-track, though. As I've said, I have a tendency to get fixated. Thinking too much about planes for planes' sake is pointless; I need to keep in mind these exercises are for the sake of understanding and memorising the key planes in order to sculpt a proper sculpt more sensibly and accurately and not get ahead of myself with secondary and tertiary shit too early. It doesn't really matter if they're pretty planes or not, as long as they're correct. If I can understand and remember them, any way they deform according to individual variation or movement will be just fine. To put it another way, as usual, I need to get my shit together.
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Hmm, that would be worth trying. It seems fairly efficient, if a little clunky. I'll look into it.
Thank you. I probably need to pull my finger out and do more than just sketches, though. It might've just turned into procrastination.
Here is a rather famous artist who was widely criticized for having "bad" anatomy.
How this "terrible artist" made MILLIONS - YouTube
Ah, Liefeld. Comic book fans in the 90s, I'm told, wanted their comics EXTREME and GRITTY and full of edge. Say what you will about Liefeld's anatomy and inability to draw feet, but the man was in touch with what they wanted, and he made a fortune back then by giving it to them. The existence of Image has been very good for American comics, too, though the whole medium in that country is still largely stuck in the superhero ghetto.
Some rare prop work. I really don't enjoy it, but I wanted to make something to get used to Maya. It's such a clunky piece of shit program. I just realised there's still some redundant edge loops I need to kill off. Ugh. That's what I get for being sloppy earlier on.
I really want to get back to my character project.
Currently a bit fixated on heads. Spent about half an hour to an hour on these; it's the weekend, so I'll try dedicating some more serious time today.
https://www.scott-eaton.com/outgoing/books/George-Bridgman-Constructive-Anatomy.pdf
Yes! That's the kind of thing I'm going for. I realised one of, if not my biggest problem, basically, is focusing on the wrong thing. I have a lot anatomy knowledge if you want to talk about individual muscles, but that's essentially useless when sculpting because you have to do their basic forms first or you'll inevitably mess it up. Well, I did, anyway. Impatience is a killer. His construction is extremely applicable in both mediums, I think. His and Bammes are really useful references for how I can understand it on a more basic level; I'll definitely make more use of them.