Basic Male body Mesh, Beginner looking for advice and tips

Queen_Skadi

Hi I am fairly new to 3D modelling and am trying to teach myself to create 3D models from scratch with Blender and could use a little critique and advice from those more in the know on things I might be neglecting or missing.

To start off with I am just trying to create a base male body mesh as a starting point to work from in creating characters and avatars and was hoping I could get some critique, was trying to keep the polycount as low as possible while still getting some good detail in, the full mesh is about 18,212 tris though roughly about 6,600 is in the body itself and a whopping 6,232 are in the hands (3,116 each hand) and 5,632 are in the feet (2,816 each foot) 11,995, these are just rough figures as I did a little clean up when joining them all together and am not sure how much is contributing to each but the number for the figures is before they were joined and cleaned up a little.


Obviously there is still a lot of cleaning up to do and I could probably cut a lot out of the feet as there is no need for them to be as detailed but I kind of want to keep the detail in the hand since if it is viewed from first person view the hands will be fairly prominent.

Any critique or advice is welcome and there is no need to hold back, am I moving in the right directions or should I rethink my approach?

Fabi_G

Hi! Props for modeling the character
With more realistic/complex characters/creatures, personally I prefer to create the shape first, then re-topologize on top of that shape. I think that way allows to better focus on either aspect. Regarding both, shape and topology, you should be able to find plenty of resources (maybe something useful in the wiki).

Keep it up!

kanga

Looking pretty good.

You want to use an app like Daz for reference while modelling. It's free.

You can dial in attributes.

Looks like box modelling above. That is one way to do it. You can also sculpt the figure in Blender and use retopology to derive a base mesh later.

Sculpting in Blender allows you to use masking (face sets) and a multi res modifier so you can pong between subdivisions while you work. You can also use image planes as guides while you work. Once again Daz is a great source for this.

Queen_Skadi

Thanks for the feedback, yeah I primarily did use a box modelling approach to create the base mesh probably isn't the most ideal method of getting more sculpted organic forms like a human body, I did have a reference character sheet to work from when creating the base mesh but as for the accuracy of that base reference I can't really say.

In regards to Daz3D models are there any in particular that are good accurate models to learn from that you would recommend? Do these need to be downloaded separately from the base application and more importantly do they cost anything?

At the moment I am trying to get a good base mesh that I could upload into something like VR chat so I want to keep the polycount as conservative as possible, but also have something that serves as a good base to start sculpting more detail on for more 3D printed figures. Is there anything about my model that sticks out like a sore thumb that probably needs rectifying or revising? Any improvements you would suggest?

kanga

Queen_Skadi sed: Is there anything about my model that sticks out like a sore thumb that probably needs rectifying or revising? Any improvements you would suggest?

Yeah that you are working from 2D sheets as reference  explains some of the incorrect anatomy. Really it is  the shape of the whole figure not really any one thing. What you need to do is rotate around a good reference while you are working. Have a look at anatomy charts (available from the web) that show how the muscles connect and flow over each other. Being able to rotate and zoom over an accurate reference while you work is invaluable. Its best when Daz is on a separate screen next to the screen you are working on. I'm not sure about the reason behind the headless model but I would steer away from that and attempt whole figures from the start. I feel that practice leads to unbalanced results.

Sculpting is not better than box modelling. I reckon most character artists use the sculpting method tho.

I'm using Daz studio 4.2 and the figures are genesis 8. The products are still free. You only need Genesis essentials. Download from here:https://www.daz3d.com

You don't have to use a sculpting approach to get good results, but you should try it, anyway it's great fun!

Queen_Skadi

Ah ok, I guess the reason for the headless model is because I want to be able to use interchangeable parts, technically the hands and feet were modelled separately as well and joined to the model just for the preview example, thought process is if I am going to use the model as a game ready asset I want it to be as easy as possible to change and remove parts where needed especially when adding clothes, certainly don't want such high poly feet especially if they are going to be covered by boots or something.

But I will have a look at Daz and try to refine from there, thanks for the tips.