So, right off the bat, I'd say that you should try taking one of these to a much more completed state, before working on the others. (though that's kind of an opinion, since many people like to bounce between projects)
Critiques as follows:
For the bearded man-
The neck is getting really lumpy and looks like the anatomy is a little sketchy. Google trapezius and neck muscles. The beard doesn't seem to be working, it's getting really muddy and mashed up, with ends that don't really resemble hair. If you're going to sculpt the hair, rather than using something like fibermesh, try to sculpt out more of a singular shape/silhouette.
I'm not sure what version of zbrush you're using. But right now your poly-density is all over the place. If you have a version with Dynamesh. Use it. If you have an earlier version, you need to make sure you sculpt out the basic shape of the whole model before starting to detail, or you'll wind up with lots of stretched/condensed poly areas.
Overall, the arms and chest need anatomy work (stylized or not). One issue is that his upper-arms are so stubby and fat that you're going to have an extremely hard time rigging him if you choose to do so, and more importantly, they look as though they have almost no range of motion. The muscle groups aren't quite in the right places and the chest looks like it has random sink-holes/ dips/ crevices in it that don't feel natural. (again, if you're stylizing, that's one thing, but it needs to read as something that feels natural for the rest of the model.)
The dragon skull mesh -
Looking pretty cool. You could make the horns more interesting, as the rest is pretty interesting. We'll have to see where this one goes.
The last grey mesh man-
Again, looking cool, but really really really hard to tell whats going on with no lighting, no texture, no sculpt. We need more info.
Your poly modeling for the dragon skull and the dude with armor look pretty solid and interesting.
Your sculpt is a big mess of random pinching, bulging, and flattening. The two things it looks like you are missing out on are
1. Solid anatomy knowledge. Doesn't matter if it's realistic or stylized, you need to have your anatomy down pat. I'm seeing a couple things that look too wrong to be realistic, and not wrong-in-the-right-way enough to be stylized. I would seriously recommend taking up some figure drawing, and checking out art books on figure drawing.
Here's some links. http://www.alexhays.com/loomis/ http://lovecastle.org/ http://artists.pixelovely.com/practice-tools/figure-drawing/
2. Solid sculpting skills. It seems like you aren't able to sculpt it out in zbrush as clearly as you can see it in your head. This is a problem everyone has when they first pick up sculpting. The solution is pretty simply though - practice, practice, practice. I suggest watching some videos by Ryan Kingslien. He has videos on sculpting techniques and anatomy, so double win. Here's a link to his youtube. http://www.youtube.com/user/rkingslien?feature=watch
Thanks! as a mater of fact I am relatively new at zbrush and have a bunch of trouble realting to male anatomy this guy actuaclly is a personal challenge for me since I always work more with female anatomy so I really need some guidance.
I have a few questions though what is a dynamesh? I am not quite familiar with the concept do you have a link where I can have a better understanding of this concept?
I totally agree with the arm I am not quite sure how it should work, I even think it could be a little time comsuming because it is not even going to be seen in the end but again ti is more of a personal challenge to study male anatome
About the dragon skull and the grey guy they are indeed the same proyect here I will attach some of the images of later sculpting of the parts, I am going one by one, they even have different uv maps since I am planning to use displacement maps instead of normals, just using normals to preview how is it looking as a whole. Do you think in this case it could be good for me to use the fibermesh on the beard and then export it as a vectorial displacement? (I am not quite sure how do that work).
Thank you so much for the links They can really help me develope more of my lacking idea of anatomical structure, which indeed gave me a a real hard time, do you think that traditional sculpting could also help. I do think I need lots of practice since I am fairly new to zbrush.
So overall, imporving anatomy specially neck and arms, trying to get the feeling of the hair to be more natural? And overall studying anatomy
About the materials... Do you have a good tutorial of render in zbrush is because I have never used it for such purpose, normally I port the model to other software and there I do the material work, connect the maps and do some values for this one I am planning to use mental ray skin shader in the torso and various other materials for the rest of it .
I am also real fond of the skull too but I am a little scared, the sculpting might take him in a different direction, I really need to study how to make it feel as if it was mae up of bone that is why I am leaving it for the end
here I attach more screens of the ongoing sculpting for you to see please do continue to critique
Replies
Critiques as follows:
For the bearded man-
The neck is getting really lumpy and looks like the anatomy is a little sketchy. Google trapezius and neck muscles. The beard doesn't seem to be working, it's getting really muddy and mashed up, with ends that don't really resemble hair. If you're going to sculpt the hair, rather than using something like fibermesh, try to sculpt out more of a singular shape/silhouette.
I'm not sure what version of zbrush you're using. But right now your poly-density is all over the place. If you have a version with Dynamesh. Use it. If you have an earlier version, you need to make sure you sculpt out the basic shape of the whole model before starting to detail, or you'll wind up with lots of stretched/condensed poly areas.
Overall, the arms and chest need anatomy work (stylized or not). One issue is that his upper-arms are so stubby and fat that you're going to have an extremely hard time rigging him if you choose to do so, and more importantly, they look as though they have almost no range of motion. The muscle groups aren't quite in the right places and the chest looks like it has random sink-holes/ dips/ crevices in it that don't feel natural. (again, if you're stylizing, that's one thing, but it needs to read as something that feels natural for the rest of the model.)
The dragon skull mesh -
Looking pretty cool. You could make the horns more interesting, as the rest is pretty interesting. We'll have to see where this one goes.
The last grey mesh man-
Again, looking cool, but really really really hard to tell whats going on with no lighting, no texture, no sculpt. We need more info.
Your poly modeling for the dragon skull and the dude with armor look pretty solid and interesting.
Your sculpt is a big mess of random pinching, bulging, and flattening. The two things it looks like you are missing out on are
1. Solid anatomy knowledge. Doesn't matter if it's realistic or stylized, you need to have your anatomy down pat. I'm seeing a couple things that look too wrong to be realistic, and not wrong-in-the-right-way enough to be stylized. I would seriously recommend taking up some figure drawing, and checking out art books on figure drawing.
Here's some links.
http://www.alexhays.com/loomis/
http://lovecastle.org/
http://artists.pixelovely.com/practice-tools/figure-drawing/
2. Solid sculpting skills. It seems like you aren't able to sculpt it out in zbrush as clearly as you can see it in your head. This is a problem everyone has when they first pick up sculpting. The solution is pretty simply though - practice, practice, practice. I suggest watching some videos by Ryan Kingslien. He has videos on sculpting techniques and anatomy, so double win. Here's a link to his youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/user/rkingslien?feature=watch
Oh, and stop using red wax. Red wax is terrible.
This guy makes a bunch of good matcaps.
http://luckilytip.blogspot.com/search/label/Matcap
He also does good figure sculpts, so I guess check out his youtube as well.
http://www.youtube.com/user/zbro365/videos?flow=grid&view=0
I have a few questions though what is a dynamesh? I am not quite familiar with the concept do you have a link where I can have a better understanding of this concept?
I totally agree with the arm I am not quite sure how it should work, I even think it could be a little time comsuming because it is not even going to be seen in the end but again ti is more of a personal challenge to study male anatome
About the dragon skull and the grey guy they are indeed the same proyect here I will attach some of the images of later sculpting of the parts, I am going one by one, they even have different uv maps since I am planning to use displacement maps instead of normals, just using normals to preview how is it looking as a whole. Do you think in this case it could be good for me to use the fibermesh on the beard and then export it as a vectorial displacement? (I am not quite sure how do that work).
Thank you so much for the links They can really help me develope more of my lacking idea of anatomical structure, which indeed gave me a a real hard time, do you think that traditional sculpting could also help. I do think I need lots of practice since I am fairly new to zbrush.
So overall, imporving anatomy specially neck and arms, trying to get the feeling of the hair to be more natural? And overall studying anatomy
About the materials... Do you have a good tutorial of render in zbrush is because I have never used it for such purpose, normally I port the model to other software and there I do the material work, connect the maps and do some values for this one I am planning to use mental ray skin shader in the torso and various other materials for the rest of it
I am also real fond of the skull too but I am a little scared, the sculpting might take him in a different direction, I really need to study how to make it feel as if it was mae up of bone
here I attach more screens of the ongoing sculpting for you to see please do continue to critique