My Very First Sculpted Head
polycounter lvl 10
I've always dreaded learning to sculpt. It always seemed like something that'd be beyond me. I'd try out a demo for some program, watch a tutorial on some simple thing like how to make a lumpy rock, and would totally suck at it. "I can't even make a rock", I'd think. Tears would be shed, and egos would be wounded. Seriously, I think it even made me start drinking heavily there for awhile.
But last night I figured hell, if I'm ever gonna get good at it, I'm gonna have to keep practicing. Even if going back into Zbrush is sorta like me diving into a relationship with that chick down the road who used to beat me about the face and neck...I gotta stick with it til I get good. To change things up a bit, I wanted to try a different approach. Instead of hard surface sculpting (or rocks), I'm gonna try something organic. I've never tried anything like it before, so it'd be a fresh experience.
So I break out some really basic tutorials on head modeling, and give 'er a rip, expecting the worst. But hey, baby steps and all that.
Turns out I actually made something halfway decent.
My experiences with any sculpting software (besides those rocks) was me taking a noise alpha, spraying it on some model I made, and going "hey look! weather damage! It's old". So the fact I was able to do something like that so quickly kinda shocked the hell out of me.
Now I gotta see if lightning can strike twice. Anyway, critique at will.
But last night I figured hell, if I'm ever gonna get good at it, I'm gonna have to keep practicing. Even if going back into Zbrush is sorta like me diving into a relationship with that chick down the road who used to beat me about the face and neck...I gotta stick with it til I get good. To change things up a bit, I wanted to try a different approach. Instead of hard surface sculpting (or rocks), I'm gonna try something organic. I've never tried anything like it before, so it'd be a fresh experience.
So I break out some really basic tutorials on head modeling, and give 'er a rip, expecting the worst. But hey, baby steps and all that.
Turns out I actually made something halfway decent.
My experiences with any sculpting software (besides those rocks) was me taking a noise alpha, spraying it on some model I made, and going "hey look! weather damage! It's old". So the fact I was able to do something like that so quickly kinda shocked the hell out of me.
Now I gotta see if lightning can strike twice. Anyway, critique at will.
Replies
But really you're gonna want to look at pics of everything that make up the face and just practice practice practice.
Keep looking at references of the face, and skull. They will be a guiding path towards understanding what bulges, and dents are caused by what structures.
I don't know if you're looking to do things realistic, or cartoony, but another piece of advice would be to try to get as familiar as possible with realistic human head proportions. Once you understand the structure, you can distort it to your hearts content, but the difference between the really good distortions, and the poor ones, is usually that the artist doing the good ones, know how to do a realistic human face first.
Keep working at it, you're going to get better.
Now, since you dont have your own library just yet, just make the habit of *always* working with a 2D goal/reference in mind (your own sketches, or pictures of strong actors, or stuff screengrabed from a cool CG movie). Every 3D model made with no precise pictural goal in mind is pretty much doomed.
If your goal was simply to make a quick study/sketch of a head, I would suggest gathering pictures references of human skulls and work from that, doing the bone frame first then adding cartilages and flesh. It seems like a bigger job to achieve but trust me you ll get good much faster.
To make it short ... you wont get good at sculpting by opening zbrush or mud and playing with them ; you ll get good by putting your ideas on paper then learning to transcribe them in 3D form, polygonal or sculpting.
Also, even in the age of high polygon sculpting and infinite subdivision levels, the bedt CG to create strong readable volumes is the polygon (all sculpting apps pretty much suck at form wedging). So, I would suggest picking up Silo or Wings3D (both can be learned in a bout 2 hours with a bit of guidance) and starting that head from scratch in polygons - you can always use your quick sculpted sketch as a guide to follow.
Good luck!
I actually tried doing that. I studied a few pictures on google images and tried to imitate the contours. My biggest problem was I came into this without any end goal in mind. Hell, I didn't even know I was making an old man until I was about 5 videos into the tutorial.
Just by looking at it that the nose is too long, the eyes are a little too large, and I'd say the cheeks are too big. Makes me think that if I want to learn realistic contouring, I should start with the very bare basics here: a human skull. I remember a Zbrush tutorial I saw awhile back that used an x-plane as a guide. It'd be interesting to try again, now that I know how to use Zbrush a little better.
Also, it'd help to tell me exactly what's wrong with the model. I already have a good idea of things that could be improved upon, but any other tips and pointers would be nice.
edit:
I'm already fairly decent with Modo, and I can already do subsurf modeling fairly well. My problem is I've hit a rock wall with the tiny details. I can do an overall shape no problem, but when it comes to something with alot of fine detailing, like say a bas relief carving, I'll struggle along, and never end up happy with the final results.
Case in point, I've got this chair I made just a couple of weeks ago. It's pretty nice, save for the fact it's a little bland. I wanted to add in the carvings you usually see on Victorian furniture. I've worked them all up in another layer and floated them, but it never looked right. One thing led to another, I figured I'd have to bite the bullet and learn how to do some organic sculpting, and well...here I am. I figured trying for realistic human figures would be a good launching point.