ZBrushCentral

female anatomy. need fresh eyes

ZBrush Artworks
#1

Hello all, I almost never post on here. I have always struggled with female anatomy. I have had many life drawing classes, but doing gesture drawing is completely useless in my opinion to teaching someone anatomy and proportions. I especially struggle with the hips, and connection of the legs to the lower torso. I am confident I have the muscles correct but not confident that the proportions are correct. I want to get one of those sculptures from freedom of teach but they are so damned expensive. I have a collection of hundreds of muscle and bone reference, but still struggle.

Sorry for the paragraph… I have uploaded a Zbrush turnaround.

I just want to see if I am missing any giant areas, I want this model to be stylized but not too dramatically. I will be making clothes for her after I move on from this stage. Also ignore the lines they are just guides. Thanks for your time.

[attach=144986]female_proportiontest.jpg[/attach]

PS: Also if you guys could add a note listing the upload limit at 500k it would help others like me who have bandwidth limits not to waste their b.w. uploading :slight_smile:

Attachments

female_proportiontest.jpg

#2

It’s nice… though it’s got some problems… Female anatomy… I also fear it…

My art professor once said “Female anatomy is like drawing a rhinoceros on the grass…”

Just forget you are sculpting a female and concentrate more in the sculpting… references are really handy and it’s not cheating to use them… google a lot… almost all references you need are in the internet.

#3

thanks for your help, and for the quote. It’s very true. Extremely challenging. Subtleties are everything it seems, get anything off and she either looks ugly, or alien. Thanks again.

#4

Hi there. Sorry you’re having so much trouble. I hate to contradict you, but I have found life drawing to be the MOST valuable learning tool for developing a strong sense of anatomy and proportion. It develops your muscle memory, and after you do it a lot, you start to get an intuitive sense for the human figure. You can just “feel” when the form is off.

Some critiques:

  1. The face looks rather severe. the forehead ridge is too strong, and the features are very sharp and angular. I would try softening things a bit, especially around the cheeks, sides of the jaw, and the sides of the forehead.
  2. The “wrapping” of the muscles in the upper arm and shoulder areas is a bit off. I’d try going to some reference to straighten it out, but in general: the biceps and triceps are not attaching to the arm in the right areas, the shape of the triceps is not right, and the deltoid (shoulder) muscle should attach closer in to the center, at the collar bone.
  3. The shoulder blades area of the back is looking too pinched and “tense.”
  4. There is some weirdness in the muscles where the knee attaches to the upper leg on the back side.
  5. In the side view, the legs don’t really seem to be supporting her weight. Try tilting the hips and legs forward a bit.

Hope this helps, and good luck!

#5

“Female anatomy is like drawing a rhinoceros on the grass…”

Lol - what? You know it’s the male form that’s variant - we all begin as females! :smiley:

Extremely challenging. Subtleties are everything it seems, get anything off and she either looks ugly, or alien.

Agreed - however your problems are not in the details. Your problems are in the overall proportions - and shapes of the figure.

You’re cut in quite a bit of detail before you’ve begun to get the right forms and proportions down. That is the first step! :slight_smile:

#6

SecretM: Thank you very much for your critique. I appreciate the steps you offered. I will go back and look at the parts you suggest.

I have had many many life drawing classes, unfortunately, majority had morbidly obese models that were terrible models (would move a lot, bad attitudes, etc). Nothing against the metabolically challenged, these people were in another category. Just that it is pretty hard to study anatomy when it’s not visible. I guess you must have had better models / professors.

Starz: Yeah I kind of cheated by taking my male model that I put a lot more work into and adjusting him to a female. I am confident that the proportions and muscle locations are correct on him - but it seems I may have to start from scratch and work on a low poly cage. I tried working with pictures, but perspective alters the proportions, and makeup and photoshop airbrushing.

Thanks again Starz and secret for your help.

#7

as far as life drawing classes, i think generally the private art schools are the ones who get the better models. from what i’ve heard, many public schools have pretty bad models. i think i’d also disagree about gesture drawing being useless for proportions. while there are other ways to get more specific ideas of proportion and anatomy, i think gestures are useful. as far as the model i don’t think you should be worrying about origin and insertion points on the muscles yet, i think the model could definatly benefit from more examination of the general forms and masses.