Anatomy Sculpt Studies, trying not to suck
interpolator
Hey all, as a wanna be, character artist I have put off studying anatomy long enough. I have seen others post similar threads on the zbrush forum:
(sculpting adventures: http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=56822&highlight=adventure)
and other sites with a ton of success, so I decided I would give it a whirl.
I plan on doing a few of these a week, mainly on the weekend. I don't want to get too caught up in detail at the moment, but just really get a handle of how thing fit together and so fourth.
So here is my first attempt of an old man. I was inspired by the speed modeling thread here by killingpeople and I spent only about 2 or 3 hours on this (which is pretty fast for me).
I used the base mesh from Mudbox, and this tutorial for reference http://www.creationsofmind.net/abishai/Timelapse_OldManHead.html.
So please feel free to critque, after all that's why I am posting here.
(sculpting adventures: http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=56822&highlight=adventure)
and other sites with a ton of success, so I decided I would give it a whirl.
I plan on doing a few of these a week, mainly on the weekend. I don't want to get too caught up in detail at the moment, but just really get a handle of how thing fit together and so fourth.
So here is my first attempt of an old man. I was inspired by the speed modeling thread here by killingpeople and I spent only about 2 or 3 hours on this (which is pretty fast for me).
I used the base mesh from Mudbox, and this tutorial for reference http://www.creationsofmind.net/abishai/Timelapse_OldManHead.html.
So please feel free to critque, after all that's why I am posting here.
Replies
You've missed some important landmarks on an old person's face, hopefully this helps:
Notice the nasolabial folds (red lines), sunken cheeks. Think about the skin stretching across the skull (blue).
Here is my latest sculpt done in about 2-3 hours again, and with the base mesh from mudbox.
One thing that always bothers me is that the front view never really matches up with the side view to me in my sculpts. By this I mean, when I rotate the mesh from the front view to the side, how I expect the side view to look (based off looking at the front view) never quite meets my expectations.
I usually think the front view and side view independently are okay, however; they just don't seem to come together right.
If this makes any sense to anyone, please give suggestions as to how I can remedy this.
And of course, any critiques or comments at all are very welcome
To me, I think the front view looks like a slightly younger and tougher looking guy, whereas the profile is older and more sinewy and weaker looking... Now, I've stared at it for a good few minutes trying to figure out WHY, but I can't for the life of me figure it out. I partly think the neck looks thick and strong in the front view and opposite in the side, but that's really not the only thing doing it. Hmmmmm.
The only thing I can think of is to find a way to age and thin him more for the front view. If someone can figure out what I'm getting at and knows how to fix it, please help me out!
I'm bringing this thread back from the dead. I never really got it running like I wanted to, but I DO want to study anatomy a lot more, so I'm going to start posting some work here again.
I'v been watching the eat 3d classical sculpting dvd and I'm inspired to work a lot harder on my anatomy knowledge.
I almost posted this in the speed thread, but I figured I would have a better chance at crits here, which is what I'm looking for really.
This one took about 1 hour mainly, but 2 more hours of tweaking and stuff, for a total of 3 hours.
I didn't use reference, and I just wanted to make something quick to test my knowledge of anatomy (without reference).
Hopefully I have improved over the last year +.
As for a critic I'd say that you are guessing at a lot of forms and laying down various lumps and bumps in the hope that it will look right. (I do the same now and again
Treat each area of the face with equal importance. Don't just lay in some bumps over the forehead and call it done. You need to really observe how the muscles and skin lay over the bone structure. You are improving though. Also, it's not cheating to look at anatomy books if you are not sure of something. Some of the character guys at work have full anatomical models on their desks.
I used the base mesh bust from mudbox so it's far from cheating imo.
I have made my own base meshes also, and I could always use those if its a concern, but I'm definitely going to use a base mesh because I think if anything it speeds up the learning process, not slow it down.
Irreal: I'm with you man, thanks for the crit!
I totally agree with the guessing point you made, and I plan on doing some stuff from reference now. I just wanted to get a quick one out of the way from memory first. Hopfully I will look back at this one some day soon, and think it sucks.
For now I'm pretty happy with it though, ha ha.
P.S. I just ordered this anatomy model earlier today: http://www.freedomofteach.com/products/figures/figure_male_3
Should be coming soon, I can't wait.
I took my time with this one, I really wanted to learn more about the skull.
Here are the results:
Here is the Base Mesh I made and used here for this:
Well I'm still struggling with getting likeness and head sculpting in general. I have a better understanding of the major forms now, but I am still not realizing certain shapes from the reference I am using. There is a lot of back and fourth at this point, change this, change that, but it doesn't look correct to me still.
Here is the biggest problem I'm having though.
What's the best way to handle Lens distortion in references? (I already know Lens Correction trick in PS)
For example, I figure that the side view is the least distorted, so I usually go off that scale, but it still looks pretty crazy from the front, if I follow it exactly. Also, in mudbox I also have to account for the FOV perspective camera which makes matters even more confusing. I also realize I can change the camera to orthographic, but since people don't view the world orthographically, it makes things just look off working like this.
Hopefully my reference will make my problem clear.
The chin and forhead are lined up in the reference, but as you will see, the features are all mis-aligned due to common lens distortion. But Checkout how off he looks when I scale the front image to the side. (see second ref)
So again, what's the best way to handle this so I can get accurate likeness in my sculpts?
Please any advice would be greatly appreciated.
As a side note, I plan to fix up the proportions here, then break the symmetry and clean up a bunch of stuff. So I'm probably a little past the half way point now I figure.
Reference Unedited:
Reference Scaled to side view:
Sculpt Progress:
awsome improvments from the start of the thread, like how you're getting much more form going on
If you do wanna use backdrops or whatever (forces you to measure things out and think about the proportions more without, tho can be more accurate if you do use some i guess), you could always adjust the focal length/depth camera stuff until it starts looking a little closer to the ref.
Also heads are usually tilted different ways in most ref (even slightly can throw measurements off), so kinda tricky to get things 100% right.
Just keep measuring man, like the hight of the nose could indicate how far down the mouth and chin are, width of teh nose can tell you the total width of the head, etc... kinda time consuming/fiddly is all
killingpeople: Thanks for the kind words. Yeah I'll revisit the skull based on your crit. It wasn't supposed to be anything but a study but I'm thinking now that I'll clean it up and put it in my portfolio until I make a better one.
Here is my latest WIP, at a finished state I think. I'm setting the old Asian dude aside for now because I don't like much how he is turning out (need to learn more before revisting him).
This time I went for a much younger person, so I wouldn't get confused by details like wrinkles and stuff.
I also think I was able to somewhat solve my problems with working from photo reference. I'll be interested to hear what you guys think about this one.
Ref:
Mudbox Screen Grab:
I particularly like that Asian dude; I'm getting that Bioshock-ish vibe from him.
Vig: It does look sorta like that actor, me and my gf had a laugh about this after you pointed it out.
Well here's another one. This image is really early on in the sculpting process, so bear with me (only sub-d 3 from Mudbox default bust).
I'm wondering if anyone can guess who it is. If you can, it will tell me I'm on the right track so it would be great if you guys can tell.
...Just kidding, its Morgan Freeman. I'm really happy you guys approve so far, I won't let you down with the final sculpt.
Thanks again!
lol
nice progression dude
But seriously, you did a good job of capturing the character, still have some anatomy things to work out with the position of the ears, the size of the features and the structure of the face.
some of the lines are too deep in my opinion. But the overall sculpt is good, you improve very quickly and you should keep going going going... you'll be a character artist before you know it
Good job and keep working hard man!
I'd like to see some love put into the hair on your next one, but maybe I'm asking too much!
nfrrtycmplx: Yeah, I agree with you, but it was on a relatively low sub-d level which is why it looked so blobby. Although the angle of that picture and the lighting makes his folds look less defined also. I appreciate the crit and kind words though.
cycloverid: Yeah, I tried to approach the hair differently this time based on your crit. It will only look so good since I am limited by polycounts. So I just try to get the basic shapes, high, medium and low frequency detail. Last time it was overly stylized looking on that kid though, so hopefully this looks better.
Well here is the final sculpt. Hope you guys like it. Next up, a famous actress!
Here are the orthos I made: (images from the movie "The Bucket List")
And the final scultpt:
-Woog
-Cheers-
Here is another one. It's about half way done. Sculpted from the Mudbox base mesh, as usual.
I'm wondering if anyone can identify her at this point.
Jessica Alba?
pestibug: Thanks a lot man!
Well here is some more work on her. Possibly now she is recognizable?
If nothing else at least she is starting to look human. lol
[edit] 1 second after I post her, I see a bunch of flaws. Eyes too small for one. Oh well, I'll do some more work on her tommorrow.
I am posting this briefing on my methods below as I'm sure many of you don't want to read it, (its pretty long).
Here is the latest still very WIP sculpt (again I haven't had a lot of time for this):
Brief Article:
Reason: I have been getting a lot of emails lately asking for advice on how to do likeness sculpts but I am currently too busy (lots of freelance work... hurray!) to write a proper tutorial on the subject. I will write a proper tutorial in the near future, but anyways here is a email response I gave someone earlier today:
Email:
Response:
Jessica Simpson? Eyes have a bit different shape and the chin seems rounder though..
But I'll get it looking more like her soon.