Tutorials and such...

LondonFella

So, I really would like to learn everything that I can possibly learn to become a damn good 3D character artist. I would just like to know where to start off with my journey. A few people have told me to dive straight in with tutorials whilst others have told me to begin with the human anatomy. I've given a go at tutorials and my first free-hand attempt at sculpting a face:

I'm by no means a master sculptor or 3D artist yet but I am working very hard at achieving that.


Any 3D game art tutorials or anatomy literature recommendations would be highly appreciated too!

Elyaradine

Tutorials generally teach you how to use software. Anatomy is one of several things you should learn to make you a better artist. If your stuff looks like crap, it's probably down to your being a crappy artist than to not knowing how to use software. There are (usually) no magic buttons or techniques that just make things look awesome. Developing your "art eyes" is much more important.

To that end, it's worth looking through tuts if you're trying to learn the software, but learning software is pretty quick. The hard thing is developing art eyes, in which case reading, studying, copying from reference, and re-drawing anatomy, understanding colour, form, depth, planes, etc., are invaluable. It may even be better to study those away from a computer where you don't have to deal with struggling with software, if that's the problem.

As for anatomy books, most of Andrew Loomis's books are public domain, while Gottfried Bammes has some epic books if you can get them. (They used to be pure German but had awesome diagrams, whereas it got translated into English a couple of years ago.)

There is no magic button. Just years of practice. Hope that helps.

LondonFella

Elyaradine wrote: »

Tutorials generally teach you how to use software. Anatomy is one of several things you should learn to make you a better artist. If your stuff looks like crap, it's probably down to your being a crappy artist than to not knowing how to use software. There are (usually) no magic buttons or techniques that just make things look awesome. Developing your "art eyes" is much more important.

To that end, it's worth looking through tuts if you're trying to learn the software, but learning software is pretty quick. The hard thing is developing art eyes, in which case reading, studying, copying from reference, and re-drawing anatomy, understanding colour, form, depth, planes, etc., are invaluable. It may even be better to study those away from a computer where you don't have to deal with struggling with software, if that's the problem.

As for anatomy books, most of Andrew Loomis's books are public domain, while Gottfried Bammes has some epic books if you can get them. (They used to be pure German but had awesome diagrams, whereas it got translated into English a couple of years ago.)

There is no magic button. Just years of practice. Hope that helps.

Thanks dude. Well, I've just got some literature on anatomy and anatomy for artists. I've also just had a look at Ryan Kingslien's youtube lessons and Richard Smith's Character design tutorial on Gnomon, which is superb.

praetus

Hazardous posted this link in one of his threads lately. http://www.pixelovely.com/gesture/figuredrawing.php It can be NSFW depending on how you enter the data , just so you know. I personally own [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Artist-Sarah-Simblet/dp/078948045X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1335797657&sr=8-1"]this book and it is pretty awesome.[/ame] There isn't really an "easy" way to learn anatomy. I'm still learning it and have loads I need to improve but it's mainly a matter of just practice all the time.

cryrid

If you liked Ryan Kingslien's stuff, you should check him out at zbrushworkshops.com

He has an anatomy class or two which you may find beneficial.