First Post and Male Anatomy help!

[system]

Hi there! Im a student who just started diving into zbrush a couple weeks ago and I’m loving it. Right now i’ve been sculpting a human male character to practice the sculpting brushes and brush up on my anatomy as well. There are some problems with it that I can feel but can’t nail them out because I think i’ve looked at it too long, so i’d love some critique! Heres a wip

This is about 3-4 hours or so of work pushing out a sphere using dynamesh, and insert cylinder for limbs and such. I’ve been in 3d for just over 2 years and my biggest problem has always been going from lower details to high detail and overlooking the middle, so I’d like to polish this character but get all the forms right before so I can break this habit.

Please help! Any critique or advice for moving forward is welcome, and the more the better!

Attachments

[Yumme]

Hey man! Welcome to ZBC!

There are not many things I can spot! Personally I think its quite something to get what you have in a couple of hours from a sphere!
The first thing I’ve noticed is the head - body proportion. I believe you want this guy at about 7.5 or even 8 heads high… Yours has a little more than 6 and this makes his head a little funny compared to the body… It could be the perspective but it won’t hurt if I mention it. What I use for measuring in Zbrush is transpose tool. If you take a measure of the head and than go in transpose options (I believe they are in preferences) you can set that particular measure as 1 unit. From there you can start measuring the body but this time when you will see “1” in the left top corner you will know for sure that that is one head. Quite a dirty trick in order to make yourself a measuring tool but it works.
Another option would be to make a subtool in which you place a plane at every landmark of the body. After I finish this post I’ll check if I find it on my computer and I’ll make it available here. The nice thing about this is that you can keep it around for other projects.
Another detail: The highest point of the skull (from a side view) is behind the years, towards the back of the head. Usually people tend to make the middle at the same level of even higher which is a mistake. Your model is not necesarlly falling into this mistake but I would review the shape of the head… For some reason the back is quite curved… Here is some nice references!
1 2 3
His cheekbone appears to go and finish almost towards the top of the ear. It should go instead exactly on the middle of the year… it is more or less on the horizontal except the little S shape it makes in the middle. Check the skulls I showed you earlier for this bone and you will see what I mean.
I would review the clavicle shape if I were you. Try to get that S shape while looking carefully at a reference and observing the landmarks that define the route this bones follows. References that might help you: thisthisand this

The other thing in the face area I wanted to tell you about is the mouth… There is something called the “barrel of the mouth”. The point is that the mouth sits on a shape that is like a cylinder inserted in the skull. Try to check you model from above and bellow and ensure that the mouth has a round form and that the upper lip overlaps the lower lip.

The last thing, regarding the body overall, is that I would advise you to keep in mind the offsetted curves of the human body. They can guide you while trying to achieve a correct and appealing human body. What I mean is for example if we take the legs, you will see that the curves of the exterior are coordinated with the interior curves of the leg. I took a pic with a model done by Scott Spencer. I changed to FlatShader so I can show you the silhouette. Observe the curves of the legs

(note: this model uses the 8 head canon)

In general, is good to look at your model in this flat mode because than you can see if the silhouette gives you enough information and if the curves are where they should be. Also try to use a material with real time lighting such as the basic material. I would recommend basic material 2 because it has a nice specularity that can help if you learn to work with highlights. Most of the MatCap materials (esspecially the red wax) tend to confuse the viewer and to hide certain shapes. They are ofcourse a very nice option for rendering but when it comes to work, try to work with a more neutral and helpful material. MatCap wise, try to get the Mudbox 1 and 2 materials from Zbro. They are some nice materials for sculpting and rendering… this if you really don’t want to use the basic material 2 (which in my opinion is the best for sculpting).

Well… I hope this has helped you some. I tried to point out what I’ve seen and ofcourse I could be wrong about some things that I’ve said but I would still go over and check the pointed areas.
I’ll check if I can find that plane subtool on my computer and I’ll be back with it in case I find it.
Good luck mate and keep up the good work!

Cheers

Dan

[system]

Awesome, thanks Yumme! These are all great points, especially the 7.5 heads tall part(that’s elementary stuff, what was I thinking??). Shouldn’t take me long at all to fix but I’ve been having some problems with my tablet -.-

Once I get that fixed I’ll be tweaking this and posting more progress!

Again thanks for the welcome and thanks for the critique!

[system]

Did some quick movement to get the proportions to make more sense. Was super busy today so didn’t have time to take it into any details but I believe it makes much more sense overall now.

Took all the form suggestions by Yumme into account along with using a better material and using the transpose tool to measure my proportions.

If anyone sees anatomical or proportion problems I would love to have critique as I’m just getting started!

Will do more substantial work and get a decent WIP up next time

[Yumme]

I think it looks better than the first WIP. I can really see the changes.
The biggest issue, in my opinion, at the moment is the Trapezius muscle area. The link to the neck and also the muscle in itself. First of all these two things (the body-neck link and the muscle) create that weird hunch which really turns me off when I look at the model because it has a weird posture. For one, I think the muscle is to big… If you look on some references you will see that actually that muscle is relatively thin. Ofc, there are humans who have a more developed muscle system but you can see that all over their body not only in one place. For the kind of human you are aiming (at least as far as I can see) that muscle has to be “deflated” a tad. After this I think you should have a look at the overall pose and correct that hunch.

There is a book that helped me A LOT! I do not have enough words in all three languages that I know to describe how good that book is and how much it helped me. It is called “Digital Sculpting - Human Anatomy” by Scott Spencer. Do yourself a favor and buy it! It is not only a great book with a very good structure and a wealthy DVD that works as a companion for the book. It is the instructor, Scott Spencer, who is a brilliant tutor!
Here is the link in case you want to consider it: http://www.amazon.com/ZBrush-Digital-Sculpting-Human-Anatomy/dp/0470450266/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1372179828&sr=8-3&keywords=scott+spencer

Looking foreword to your next WIP!

Edit: I kept looking at it and I think there is one more thing that would help you greatly: try to go down a subdiv level and adjust everything there. Also, while being at that subdiv lvl, try to define exactly the muscles. I know in real life, when you look at normal people, you can’t see each and every muscle. But for this type of exercise I think it would help you a lot if you would define each of the big muscles and than, only after you are satisfied with the result, go up a subdiv level and start adding the skin (aka the blending between the muscles).

[system]

I think it looks better than the first WIP. I can really see the changes.
The biggest issue, in my opinion, at the moment is the Trapezius muscle area. The link to the neck and also the muscle in itself. First of all these two things (the body-neck link and the muscle) create that weird hunch which really turns me off when I look at the model because it has a weird posture. For one, I think the muscle is to big… If you look on some references you will see that actually that muscle is relatively thin. Ofc, there are humans who have a more developed muscle system but you can see that all over their body not only in one place. For the kind of human you are aiming (at least as far as I can see) that muscle has to be “deflated” a tad. After this I think you should have a look at the overall pose and correct that hunch.

There is a book that helped me A LOT! I do not have enough words in all three languages that I know to describe how good that book is and how much it helped me. It is called “Digital Sculpting - Human Anatomy” by Scott Spencer. Do yourself a favor and buy it! It is not only a great book with a very good structure and a wealthy DVD that works as a companion for the book. It is the instructor, Scott Spencer, who is a brilliant tutor!
Here is the link in case you want to consider it: http://www.amazon.com/ZBrush-Digital-Sculpting-Human-Anatomy/dp/0470450266/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1372179828&sr=8-3&keywords=scott+spencer

Looking foreword to your next WIP!

Edit: I kept looking at it and I think there is one more thing that would help you greatly: try to go down a subdiv level and adjust everything there. Also, while being at that subdiv lvl, try to define exactly the muscles. I know in real life, when you look at normal people, you can’t see each and every muscle. But for this type of exercise I think it would help you a lot if you would define each of the big muscles and than, only after you are satisfied with the result, go up a subdiv level and start adding the skin (aka the blending between the muscles).

I thought I had put a reply to this post before but apparently it doidnt go through D: I got that book you suggested from amazon and have been going through it, It’s a great resource. I’ve been doing a new male body sketch using the book as a guideline. The progress is muuuuuuch slower but it’s yielding much better looking results, also it started from a zsphere setup so the topology is much better as well.

Zsphere body setup

Initial body mass out after zspheres

So then I have section by section started detailing out the muscle groups. The target is a ‘heroic’ figure so the guy is kinda big and kinda ripped also skin and fat are yet to come:o

I have the all the muscle sections done except the chapters for hand and feet, and then after that is blending of the shapes, fixing up the overall composition, and adding the little details, along with clothing. So far with comparing this to my first attempt at sculpting a body, the guidance of the book has helped me correct anatomical parts of the body that are sometimes overlooked, and allowed me to create a model that each part works together better overall.

In general I am much happier with my results thus far, can’t wait to bring him to a more realistic overall look once skin and fat and final details are done. Thanks for the suggestion on the book Yumme