Well done on studying, just wanted to say whenever you are completed with this way of doing things i found doing things like this helps much more (for me) & felt like adding it in as a possible option down the road to give a shot for you to decide which is best course of action when creating similar designs.
Though i took that process to the next level and did each muscle group so you can adjust sections to your liking or results expected. That is all no need to really address this comment otherwise.
All the best. hf.
Hmm, that would be worth trying. It seems fairly efficient, if a little clunky. I'll look into it.
It's been a little bit since I posted some sketches. I was trying to get the hang of legs, so I did a load more. I think I've worked them out now, though I should study a bit more to be certain. It turns out what was throwing me off were a few small muscles that I'd overlooked. That was fucking stupid. The last study I did doesn't look quite right, but I do understand the problem now, so it's not far off of correctness; I just decided to leave that one be instead of working more on it.
I also did some studies of feet; I'm not really familiar with them much, since they're rarely the object of my focus. They're probably the last thing anyone would look at on a character model, but I can't really bear the idea of making something decent and then shitting it up with bad, deformed looking feet, so I want to become skilled at them, too. But I need to work on something else. Arms are the last body part I don't really know much about or have skill at sculpting; if I can do them and hands alright, I'll only need to worry about heads, and then, in theory, I'll have a decent enough understanding overall to create a whole. Last time I tried it was just deeply insufficient...
Some sketches I've done recently. Apparently totally out of order despite the way I uploaded them. Oh well. I should revise the back muscles. Those aren't right.
That aside, I'm also studying the forearms. They're the last part I'm really awful at due to lack of knowledge. Got the extensors down. Just the flexors next.
Ah, Liefeld. Comic book fans in the 90s, I'm told, wanted their comics EXTREME and GRITTY and full of edge. Say what you will about Liefeld's anatomy and inability to draw feet, but the man was in touch with what they wanted, and he made a fortune back then by giving it to them. The existence of Image has been very good for American comics, too, though the whole medium in that country is still largely stuck in the superhero ghetto.
A few things I've done recently. Arms are really difficult. I should try to focus on the common masses instead of fixating on the individual parts, but I also want to know them properly and not just as vague shapes. I'm still sculpting at a low res to try to check that bad habit of mine, but it's a bit insufficient for capturing them. I think I probably just need to focus on making the impression of them good enough that if I resed it up I'd be able to start sculpting it into something better from there.
Speaking of difficult things, that part of legs there isn't great. I tried sculpting from a reference of a woman with more fat on her legs than I'm used to, so most of the things I was thinking about weren't very visible. That's something I should improve on, too. I think I spend a bit too much time looking at people with fairly defined muscles; it's good for anatomy practice, but most people's bodies don't look like that. I don't want to be the kind of sculptor that can only sculpt ideals.
Curious if you're referencing an Ecorche for these sculpts?
also hands and feet are the most difficult body parts to model let alone attempt enough finesse as an initial study.
Partly, but I tend to reference a lot more from photos. I found in the past a big problem I had was thinking too much about the muscles in isolation and not accounting for the many differences you get from skin and fat, so I try to look at photos of actual people more. I'm still not good at it, though. The way fat especially changes the forms is something I don't have a great grasp on.
Hands and feet are very hard. I've mostly left them fairly vague in studies I've done, since they could take up ages just by themselves, let alone when they're on a whole limb. But that's another weakness I need to fix.
I think there's definitely a competency applying skeletal & musculature fundamentals just by skimming through this thread though occasionally imo an errant proportional asymmetry would become apparent although minimal, when for example unifying the torso too either upper or lower limbs.
My background back in the day was both wet and dry traditional media, painting figurative portraits on commission so perhaps bit of a tip learnt via art school during life drawing classes in terms of building an observational skill recognizing proportion.
Anyhow as merely an exercise I'd suggest, roughly sculpt using simple shapes establishing the basic structure by positioning limbs and overall balance prior to adding detail plus further insight, when of course time permits.
I'll also recommend the published series by Andrew Loomis, which by the way are now free formatted to PDF particularly "Figure Drawing For All It's Worth" an artist still highly revered by many.
May seem on the face of it a tad oxymoronic, juxtaposing disparate disciplines but from my point of view regardless of ones interest, such accrued enlightened knowledge continues to retain artistic value.
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Hmm, that would be worth trying. It seems fairly efficient, if a little clunky. I'll look into it.
Thank you. I probably need to pull my finger out and do more than just sketches, though. It might've just turned into procrastination.
Here is a rather famous artist who was widely criticized for having "bad" anatomy.
How this "terrible artist" made MILLIONS - YouTube
Ah, Liefeld. Comic book fans in the 90s, I'm told, wanted their comics EXTREME and GRITTY and full of edge. Say what you will about Liefeld's anatomy and inability to draw feet, but the man was in touch with what they wanted, and he made a fortune back then by giving it to them. The existence of Image has been very good for American comics, too, though the whole medium in that country is still largely stuck in the superhero ghetto.