Male Character Base
Hi everyone I am currently working on a Male Base mesh for future kit bashing on my models etc and I would like any advice to help me get it to a high standard so that it could go into my portfolio 
bellow is what I have after about 8 hours I am still only on subdiv 3 as I plan on retopologising it before going up to a new subdiv. At this stage I am mainly trying to get everything in the right place and to the correct scale if you guys and gals notice anything out of place and/or have any advice on how best to proceed then I am all ears.
Additionally bellow is an older attempt but I got mixed responses what do you all think? I might keep it and edit it later J
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Thanks in advance
Dan[/FONT]
bellow is what I have after about 8 hours I am still only on subdiv 3 as I plan on retopologising it before going up to a new subdiv. At this stage I am mainly trying to get everything in the right place and to the correct scale if you guys and gals notice anything out of place and/or have any advice on how best to proceed then I am all ears
.Additionally bellow is an older attempt but I got mixed responses what do you all think? I might keep it and edit it later J
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Thanks in advance
Dan[/FONT]
Replies
Constructive crit and advice would be greatly appreaciated
Cheers
Dan
A few more things, don't have his hands rotated round that way. you want them in a normal relaxed posture, so they can be moved into a different position with minimal stretching, yours are much too extreme, This is why just about every t-pose model you see on polycount etc has their hands roughly pointing down in a relaxed pose.
His pose is bit odd, he currently looks like he's squatting, his knees are slightly bent, and he's sticking his ass out really far (his ass is alo pretty huge btw). His waist is a bit too thin, and his hands look a bit too small.
Also, turn on perspective mode in zbrush both for sculpting and for renders (press p in zbrush)
^^^ this
he just said what I think I'd want to say. XD
Thanks for the advice I will take that into account
Cheers
You should setup a character sheet in maya and block in the anatomy before going into zbrush (use the reference image below), then you can start sculpting and finally retopo. The initial poly model doesn't need a ton of geometry, but needs evenly spaced polygons.
Most, if not all of it is out of proportion. Mr. Ace nailed it, but I'll try to elaborate a little more. There are a lot of issues technically, but the fundamental issues are a way bigger problem.
The best way in my opinion to check whether something is accurate (proportions, shapes, muscles, etc) is to just look at its real world equivalent. Look at your character next to a photo of a real bodybuilder, or even just a normal guy, and a ton of things will jump out at you immediately. For one, he has a Kim K ass, which is quite odd for a male basemesh. His knees are too low, his hands are much too small which would make his wrist too small also, there is no sign of a ribcage, his pelvis is a really really weird shape, etc etc. On the technical side of things, you are moving on to high subdivisions wayy too quickly, so a lot of your forms are very blobby and melt-y. My advice would be start off really low, throw on the Flat shader filled with all black, and focus on getting a really nice attractive silhouette with only the move brush, THEN actually start sculpting.
This is a terrible attitude to have. Please, we don't need anymore Rob Liefelds, hiding feet because he can't draw them.
Also polaroid29 I know I jumped up sculpting levels to fast I just did it to get enough pixles to put a basic face structure down as it was built from a Z sphere and I couldnt get the landmarks for the eyes/mouth done in that stage without it warping the head strangely :S but the main point of that sculpt was to give me something to build from/retopologise in maya but yeh in a sculpting regards I totaly agree its to fast
Cheers
Dan
Your legs are quite close together, this could cause you issues if you decide to rig your model later.
I dont know if your actually trying to make a body builder, or just a reusable base mesh. Like those guys said before its quite extreme. You should try collecting some orthographic photos for modelling such as 3dsk, or taking some yourself of people you know (make sure its from a distance and then zoomed in to eliminate perspective warp). Make sure your using collected references from the internet all the way through your projects process and its sure to turn out good and right!
sorry for the watermark, but you can find torrents of their stuff or look for other sources of photos. In these images though you can see compaired to yours the shapes are curved and subtle and not as extreme, your torso is very cartoonised. This guy is a little bulky but alot more general than your bodybuilder type body.. if you are still going for heavy musculature make sure you are really using reference for that and try and find yourself some nice orthos. you will probably also want to pick one side of this body that looks the nicest to model from, then mirror your models body. because of the level of muscle this guy has he actually does have a rather round butt.
source: http://www.3d.sk/photos/search/query//thumb/small/standard/1/premium/1/category-113/Man/category-139/Modeling%20references/category-263/Athletic/page/4
My plan is to have this as a reusable base mesh that I can use for general male characters put it into ZBrush and the alter it e.g. make him bigger with more muscle definition for a body builder, skinnier and smaller for a more ectomorphic character, fatter and more bulbous for an endomorphic character etc so a good base with the correct proportions. and I want him to look realistic again so it’s a good base so I can alter it to a specific style if needed etc.
I will have another look at the eye sockets when I’m at home.
As for the Legs I will space them out I just wanted to make sure they fit the orthos that were sent to me by Psk0 as seen above and they seem to
I will take a screen of the character in front of the orths as well.
Additionally what do you guys think of the poly spacing? I'm trying to make them all even with only a few areas where they aren’t to produce natural definition e.g. the chest
your model will only have one place to go from here to be anything else.....and that isonly space to reduce muscle.... your level of muscle is very much on the high end its very defined, i think you need to keep it softened down. more subtle.
im only a student, and i cant really give you much more advice than iv already said.
maybe you should just make a muscular type character out of this. for your next character do try making anothing base, afterall the more you work the better you will get, if you plan your character out then you can just make a base more suited to what you are aiming for? for your next character try a completely different body type and then maybe you will start to see the different levels of muscularture and shapes?
oh also take a look at your jaw it seems to be a straight diagonal from your chin to the ear... jaws are not like this.
Here is a brief over view of what i was going to say:
things to look at :
Shoulder silhouette - looks too disjointed, study how the muscles join to the bones.
chest area too blobby and pecs not connecting properly to the arm
Arms way too thin for his build, so are the legs
torso silhouette is odd, consider how the muscles sit on top of the rib cage.
Overall blobbyness and proportions.
At this stage, forget about the topology of the model, there are tons of tools you can use to build the correct topology afterwards. At the moment its just getting in the way you focusing on the sculpture.
Here is a quick paint over showing what i mean
Keep it up!
This is a character that is going to end up low poly for use in a game engine
gilesruscoe[/FONT]
Ta for the feed back I am moving him about now to give him a more relaxed pose and he looks more proportionate due to it would appreciate your feed back on it should have a pic up shortly