Muscular anatomy

scourgewarper

I am primarily an environment artist however I am always interested in developing my character modeling side, what is the general view on using images of bodybuilders from magazines like muscle and fitness for reference when modeling superhero type characters which obviously have exaggerated proportions and physiques?

Ironically today's pro body builders are considered 'freaky' compared to the relatively lithe physiques of arnie and even lou ferrigno in the late 60's early 70's, today's body builders often have huge bloated stomachs and in my opinion are way over developed, raw size and vascularity has overtaken proportion and symmetry to a certain extent but thats the way things have evolved there, so do any of you use this type of muscular reference or do you stick to tradional andrew loomis type proportions for a base mesh and expand from there?

Rens

i have never done any superhero characters, but the refs are quite usefull to some point.

bodybuilders have such a useless muscle volume, they get slow and mostly cant even put there arms straight down. because of this loss in flexebility i think super hero characters are more based on a mix of things.

the muscles of a bodybuilder are ment to do short bursts, lift a huge amount of weight, for only a couple times or for a short time
the muscles of a hero are more build for overall strength and endurence,

you can go for less volume, but alot of "drawing"
take a look at top sporters and compare those to body builders,

Jeremy Wright

Well, If you want to model superheroes, you could just use comic book superhero drawings as reference.

The benefits of bodybuilder reference is the ability to see muscles in their exagerated maximum, so you can see things that you miss otherwise (i.e. how the muscle systems interact with each other). You should check out some MMA/UFC fighters, too. At the end of the day, though, a superhero is a superhero and a bodybuilder is a bodybuilder and they don't look exactly the same.

Mongrelman

I highly recommend this incase you haven't seen it, very interesting and helpful.

http://gnomonology.com/tutorial/350

ArtsyFartsy

This is one of those things where if you have to ask, then you just can't do it.

There are lots of rules about how to build a monumental figure, or how to draw humans in general, but they're just a starting point and if you try to follow them precisely your figures will look odd and lifeless. Only through years of experience can you hope to create believable characters with personality, and emphasize the features you want.

Overall I would say that stylized, or exaggerated characters are actually harder to create than realistic ones because there is no reference and you have to come up with your own proportions. Start by making a standard human, and then tweak features of it till you get close to what you want, but I would strongly recommend that you start out with the very average man.

Rens

i have to disagree on that,

if you try realism, there is no room for error.
if a shape is just slightly off, you will notice it

with a hero, you are more free to do what you want with the shapes,
if things are not perfectly correct, no one will notice.


yes there is more refs for realism then other styles, but just browse some comics and you will find tons of ref material
so it should not be a problem

scourgewarper

Character modeling isn't my area of expertise however I think using pictures of highly developed body builders would be good for seeing how muscles interact and lock into one another as well as how they can actually produce quite sharp edges when flexed, but again I guess it's all down to your personal workflow.

Mongrelman: that gnomonology tutorial you mentioned is really good i'll have to watch that again sometime.

Karmageddon

Mongrelman wrote: »

I highly recommend this incase you haven't seen it, very interesting and helpful.

http://gnomonology.com/tutorial/350

Wow, I hadn't heard of this site before... Thanks so much for the link!