What type of dude are you trying to make and what is your reference? Posting these two things would let us provide even more crits.
Some observations based on the front view. These are measurements to use with your reference to improve your work, not rules to live by.
1. Eyes are too high. Should be roughly in center of head. Check where they are on your reference.
2. Head should be 5 eyes wide. Eyes should be 1 eye apart
3. Don't have your dude looking off to the side. Eyes are very useful landmarks and by having them looking to the side you're making it harder on yoursef. Center of eyris typically is a little outside of the corner of the lips.
4. Edge of nostrils and inside corner of eyes typically should line up, yours don't
5. Eyebrows and top of ears should roughly line up
6. Base of nose and bottom of ears should roughly line up.
Look over Andrew Loomis - Drawing the Head and Hands some more. Study how he breaks down planes some more. Make a model based off of what you posted in post #24 in this thread. Then make another one and try to get it to look like a female. Don't rush, don't give up on something even if you think it looks like crap. Post more drawings. Take as long as it takes you to get it. The better you know the basics the better you can bend the forms to your will.
How dare i forget the basic proportion principles of a head!! I had become so focused on muscles that i completely forget, even though ive known about them for a very long time.
torso looks good for a start, forms look pinched in areas...try using something other that the clay brush to define the forms, eg. the abs from the rig cage, also the illiac crest looks very inflated. Keep refering to reference if you dont get a a certain area.
Btw what matcap did you use?
Just a suggestion, I would recommend desaturating your reference to better see the changes of angles in the head. Sometimes color can throw your perception off. Also what Pior said about the mouth still holds for your quick/new head studies. The lips aren't just a slice in the bottom 1/3rd of the face, they're overlapping planes. Most often than not the top lip flows behind the bottom lip to the inside of the mouth. It appears your heads don't seem to have much of lips at all, to be honest.
Hope this helps, good luck. I've been trying to get my anatomy to a higher level as well.
Alright, time I come back to this. Didn't go into much detail with this sculpt, just tried to get a good body form. I used references for the entire thing, so just crit away on the torso here:http://www.polycount.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1250136&postcount=56 and the one below.
Head was just quickly done (It needs a ton more work if I was actually going to make it A+). Im personally satisfied with my head accuracy(not referring to this head) and I myself believe its enough to get the ball rolling but if anyone disagrees just let me know.
Also trying to get used to the whole tablet-zbrush thing. Very cramping.
The bottom of the torso seems to be getting a bit long, which is only emphasized by the shortness of the legs. I'd pull the whole hip area up a bit, and make the hip area deeper (on the y axis) as they're looking a bit dinky now. After you make some of those adjustments you'll probably have to adjust arm length as well.
Where the legs connect to the hips is really odd. And that whole area looks a bit feminine.
Also, pay close attention to the clavicle. It isn't just straight across like that. It has a bit of an S shape and curves around a bit. Also, how it's attaching to the deltoid is pretty odd. Well, that whole area really, the arms just seem to slope up to the base of the head like a hill. Take a closer look at how the muscles and bones connect there.
Im going to be honest about the hip. No matter how much reference I use I cant get it to look right, ill keep trying but I can already tell this is going to be the part of the anatomy ill be fiddling with everytime I create a character.
Note about the clavicle taken, will do the entire thing again soon.
I tried to make the head actually good this time, but knowing I had the entire body to do and that is was my main goal impaired my patience with the head. Had I planned this to be an actual character I would hopefully fix this my limiting myself to one region per day.
Guys i have a question about character development. When you create a full character, is the body and head one full mesh? Or can you split it around the neck to make interchangeable heads, but how does that affect sculpting?
definitly better overall anatomy, its hard to say how well you have captured muscle groups as he seems to be old with floppy skin folds rather than real solid muscle mass.
Well I felt that when I sculpted straight on muscles It always looked very unnatural, so I tried to do a not so fit person and try to make his body look as relaxed and natural as possible. So now I can go back to muscles with a little bit more knowledge on "Ok so this will make the arms look more relaxed." etc.
I Think your main problem is that you add detail in a too high subd level.. try making the best out of the first levels of subdivision and then work on the details in the higher ones when your mesh is well defined.
I Think your main problem is that you add detail in a too high subd level.. try making the best out of the first levels of subdivision and then work on the details in the higher ones when your mesh is well defined.
The legs I did this yes, but not the torso. I was only planning on doing the torso but it came out better than I expected so I just went down and added in some leg muscles (which is where the brush strokes show, especially in the calf).
Thanks SHC. I'd use 3DSK but Its not free, I do try to use google but its hard to ever see all the dimples that really sell the muscles. And, 'muscle pinch brush'?
After I myself finished working out, I went on a reference hunting spree on google and found 14 very good upper body images that capture every little detail (no fake bulky body builders, though).
Going to work up another sculpt here in a minute.
Just want to thank everyone who has posted on this thread, the most recent picture I made still surprises even myself because I never thought id reach even that exceptional quality (Which i believe would have passed if the character was wearing clothes :P). Im loving the progress im making and every new sculpt motivates me to crank out another.
Thanks guys !
Also, the hands, are they too small? My base mesh causes the fingers to shrink and its hard for me to re-flesh them out again. Im thinking of scaling the hand on my basemesh.
Hows this? Ran out of time tonight but I still need to smooth out some areas to add flesh. I like this one more than the one before the last because the muscles feel like they have weight and actually look like theyre bulging out.
I hope it's okay that I do this:
the male flank happens from the muscles from the pelvis and UP, on a woman the pelvis is usually wider so the muscles do not appear this way, but on a dude his hips are narrower giving the effect of these muscles flopping out a bit - but the thing is, they are ABOVE the pelvis, and you have them covering it. That is getting you that diaper shape and making his crotch huge.
Frell's photo has a good example of these folds. I couldn't understand them much myself until I realized how they attach to the pelvis.
Girls have them too, it just tends to fold a bit different from the wider pelvis - but once you know how it works you will spot them.
edit: something that might be fun for you to try if you have difficulty establishing proportions, try some crazy ones to explore the phenomenon of proportion. Pushing anatomy to the extremes can help you know more about it.
Alright did some refining, the hips are still bad and im completely aware of this. I just want to make sure everything above the belly button is accurate right now and Ill move downward in more focus because I also have to tune up the legs a bit.
Looking at this again, there's a lot more things looking really strange, such as the way the neck muscles are done. They're supposed to be attached behind the jaw, not merged with it.
The way there's an extra crease running down from the outside of the clavicles is odd too. You're missing how the biceps disappears between/underneath the muscles of the lower arm - again you're merging the shapes. I'm not even gonna start on the legs/back.
I'd say grab a good book (I like Sarah Simblet's "Anatomy for Artists") out of the library, bookstore, or off of a torrent and try to recreate a more normal/average person as perfect as possible instead of starting with huge blokes.
Oh yea lol the neck, needs to be redone. Got distracted while doing it.
The crease running from the clavicle to the armpit is visible on the reference picture I posted above, but I overdid it and angled it wrong
Ignore the legs and the back like I said before the picture. Those (to me) aren't nearly as difficult as getting the torso front and arms to flow nicely so ive put them off until im satisfied with it. Went back through my references and I found a picture that shows how the bicep should go under, and I do have it wrong.
I have a good chunk of reference pictures that show how everything should be, but I think what im doing is pinpointing spots to fix and becoming oblivious to other possible mistakes.
Thanks for all the crits though. Once I edit this mesh to a good point ill make a completely new one (hopefully this weekend). I find it funny how every character artist already on the forums seems to magically have all knowledge of anatomy, with no trace of even learning left behind. Just something I always wonder about lol.
I recommend getting a skeleton mesh and sculpting each muscle on top as its own subtool, with proper origin and insertion. Follow along Zack's video, sculpt 1 muscle per day and post here for feedback, you won't see anatomy the same way when you're done. Learning important landmarks of the skeleton is a tremendous help and shouldnt be overlooked.
The third one looks like a good deal, if he actually does go over every muscle. The last time I got a gnomon tutorial I was somewhat disappointed though.
You are right Psyk0, Im only halfway through the video but I already feel like I know what is under the skin, not just what shows through the skin. This actually makes me want to thin out my basemesh to almost a skeletal blockout.
As much as I agree with your avatar I gotta say 1 muscle a day (even a muscle group) sounds incredibly slow. He could probably get away with learning the entire thing in 2 days at most.
Well i dunno how full his schedule is, plus my point is, if you are gonna study something you truely want to learn, why do it half assed?. Let's see quality over quantity.
Sometimes i did spend 1 day, no not 8 hours, but whatever free time i had on 1 muscle, especially if it was more complex. Other times i would do a lot more because they were pretty straight forward.
Frell: if you need a skeleton i can throw one your way.
I see no use of a skeleton to put muscles onto, seems more like a hassle than a learning process. Ill stick with Zack's lecture where he goes over every single part of every major muscle in entirety. Not trying to be a dick or anything at all, I probably would learn something but Im not to hot with tons of subtools like that. Ill keep examining them though Thanks for the offer.
After watching half the video I did a quick sculpt, much comparable to my sculpts on page 3 because hes not very buff. I did this without references immediately after the video to see how much I remembered about each muscle, and because I dont have much time to make a medium build reference library
I recommend getting a skeleton mesh and sculpting each muscle on top as its own subtool, with proper origin and insertion. Follow along Zack's video, sculpt 1 muscle per day and post here for feedback, you won't see anatomy the same way when you're done. Learning important landmarks of the skeleton is a tremendous help and shouldnt be overlooked.
I think I might do this soon as my daily sculpting exercise, thanks for the tip. The video/model looks great.
Replies
Some observations based on the front view. These are measurements to use with your reference to improve your work, not rules to live by.
1. Eyes are too high. Should be roughly in center of head. Check where they are on your reference.
2. Head should be 5 eyes wide. Eyes should be 1 eye apart
3. Don't have your dude looking off to the side. Eyes are very useful landmarks and by having them looking to the side you're making it harder on yoursef. Center of eyris typically is a little outside of the corner of the lips.
4. Edge of nostrils and inside corner of eyes typically should line up, yours don't
5. Eyebrows and top of ears should roughly line up
6. Base of nose and bottom of ears should roughly line up.
Look over Andrew Loomis - Drawing the Head and Hands some more. Study how he breaks down planes some more. Make a model based off of what you posted in post #24 in this thread. Then make another one and try to get it to look like a female. Don't rush, don't give up on something even if you think it looks like crap. Post more drawings. Take as long as it takes you to get it. The better you know the basics the better you can bend the forms to your will.
Keep it up.
(Focused on front torso muscles right now)
Comments on the torso above that picture?
Btw what matcap did you use?
Hope this helps, good luck. I've been trying to get my anatomy to a higher level as well.
So.... how good is zbrush with tablets? ^^
Head was just quickly done (It needs a ton more work if I was actually going to make it A+). Im personally satisfied with my head accuracy(not referring to this head) and I myself believe its enough to get the ball rolling but if anyone disagrees just let me know.
Also trying to get used to the whole tablet-zbrush thing. Very cramping.
Primary focus:
Overall form (light)
and torso
Also, pay close attention to the clavicle. It isn't just straight across like that. It has a bit of an S shape and curves around a bit. Also, how it's attaching to the deltoid is pretty odd. Well, that whole area really, the arms just seem to slope up to the base of the head like a hill. Take a closer look at how the muscles and bones connect there.
Note about the clavicle taken, will do the entire thing again soon.
I tried to make the head actually good this time, but knowing I had the entire body to do and that is was my main goal impaired my patience with the head. Had I planned this to be an actual character I would hopefully fix this my limiting myself to one region per day.
Now to work solely on hands and feet (while taking crits on this) and just practice sculpting the entire body everyday like I have been
Thanks SHC. I'd use 3DSK but Its not free, I do try to use google but its hard to ever see all the dimples that really sell the muscles. And, 'muscle pinch brush'?
Going to work up another sculpt here in a minute.
Just want to thank everyone who has posted on this thread, the most recent picture I made still surprises even myself because I never thought id reach even that exceptional quality (Which i believe would have passed if the character was wearing clothes :P). Im loving the progress im making and every new sculpt motivates me to crank out another.
Thanks guys
Also, the hands, are they too small? My base mesh causes the fingers to shrink and its hard for me to re-flesh them out again. Im thinking of scaling the hand on my basemesh.
Think im getting good at the torso :P Those refs really paid off.
Yea they come down a bit too much. Nothing a little move brush can't fix though.
the male flank happens from the muscles from the pelvis and UP, on a woman the pelvis is usually wider so the muscles do not appear this way, but on a dude his hips are narrower giving the effect of these muscles flopping out a bit - but the thing is, they are ABOVE the pelvis, and you have them covering it. That is getting you that diaper shape and making his crotch huge.
Frell's photo has a good example of these folds. I couldn't understand them much myself until I realized how they attach to the pelvis.
Girls have them too, it just tends to fold a bit different from the wider pelvis - but once you know how it works you will spot them.
edit: something that might be fun for you to try if you have difficulty establishing proportions, try some crazy ones to explore the phenomenon of proportion. Pushing anatomy to the extremes can help you know more about it.
The way there's an extra crease running down from the outside of the clavicles is odd too. You're missing how the biceps disappears between/underneath the muscles of the lower arm - again you're merging the shapes. I'm not even gonna start on the legs/back.
I'd say grab a good book (I like Sarah Simblet's "Anatomy for Artists") out of the library, bookstore, or off of a torrent and try to recreate a more normal/average person as perfect as possible instead of starting with huge blokes.
The crease running from the clavicle to the armpit is visible on the reference picture I posted above, but I overdid it and angled it wrong
Ignore the legs and the back like I said before the picture. Those (to me) aren't nearly as difficult as getting the torso front and arms to flow nicely so ive put them off until im satisfied with it. Went back through my references and I found a picture that shows how the bicep should go under, and I do have it wrong.
I have a good chunk of reference pictures that show how everything should be, but I think what im doing is pinpointing spots to fix and becoming oblivious to other possible mistakes.
Thanks for all the crits though. Once I edit this mesh to a good point ill make a completely new one (hopefully this weekend). I find it funny how every character artist already on the forums seems to magically have all knowledge of anatomy, with no trace of even learning left behind. Just something I always wonder about lol.
The third one looks like a good deal, if he actually does go over every muscle. The last time I got a gnomon tutorial I was somewhat disappointed though.
Well i dunno how full his schedule is, plus my point is, if you are gonna study something you truely want to learn, why do it half assed?. Let's see quality over quantity.
Sometimes i did spend 1 day, no not 8 hours, but whatever free time i had on 1 muscle, especially if it was more complex. Other times i would do a lot more because they were pretty straight forward.
Frell: if you need a skeleton i can throw one your way.
After watching half the video I did a quick sculpt, much comparable to my sculpts on page 3 because hes not very buff. I did this without references immediately after the video to see how much I remembered about each muscle, and because I dont have much time to make a medium build reference library