Thanks for the comments everyone! now to answer a few questions.
Sculpting:
The creation of this was done completely within Zbrush, aside from the cloth which was a MD sim. Using a sphere and dynamesh I started with the skull and then the jaw. Then, I started layering muscles on the face using the same method, using dynamesh and s sphere. I didn't like how the muscles looked so detached from the bones and from each other, so everyone once in a while I would re-dynamesh everything together again - so in essence the skull and muscles of the face became one subtool that I could sculpt on. I sued the same methods with the sternum, clavicle and pec muscles. The veins and nerves were simply done zpheres, I tried other techniques as well but I felt I got the most accurate results with the zpheres...the most time consuming part was not the modeling but the reference hunting and checking, and re-checking over and over again to ensure I could get the most accurate results possible. Another positive side effect of this study was that I could tie it in with work and understanding FACS and how facial muscles work together. If people show interest I could upload this to gumroad and sell it for a small fee - IM me about this.
Rendering:
I rendered in Mental Ray for Maya. It was a pretty straight forward environment setup, I used curved ramp as backdrop and added some sidewalls to bounce light. I setup 4 lights - a couple rim lights a key and a fill. They were all area lights using light shape and a mental ray physical light shader, using the HSV value for intensity. For the camera I used a mia photographic lense and tweaked the settings along with light intensity until everything looked decent. A good tutorial for this is: http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthr...th-mental-ray)
Although the depth of field and Bokeh take FOREVER....so I usually skip that part and do it in photoshop. Once you understand that tutorial, you'll understand how to customize and get the effects you are looking for.
Post:
Post was basic, levels, contrast, a little noise....and as I mentioned earlier I used some of the Mike Nash P-shop adjustment layers.
I'm currently trying to get a nice render out of the skin side..might have to wait until tomorrow. I hope that answers everyones questions.
RamsusW: thanks for the comments. I used the standard MR fast skin which was piped through the mia material for proper reflections. It took me a while to figure it out, but then i found this sweet tutorial right here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDDPOMFtCxg
It doesn't get to the important stuff until a couple of minutes in so give it time.
do better...but really, nice work. Anatomy studies are the best. Those little fuzz looking bits are a nice subtle touch. Are you planning on doing any more of the body? I wanted to do a full body ecorche years ago, but stopped after the skeleton torso to focus more on cloth and texturing.
After you combed through all that anatomy ref, is there any you recommend/ think are the best? I've always tended to stick with Dr. Paul Richer's Artistic Anatomy since he was a Dr and artist, though I mostly use it in conjuction with life reference. Also a lot of text I imagine is insightful but still haven't read much of. I also am a big fan of Atlas of Clinical Gross Anatomy for my life/ cadaver reference. The dissections are quite clean too which is nice.
Ended up doing some painting, and due to my UV laziness I rendered in Zbrush for the first time. I still have some painting tweaks to do...and probably a few composite rendering tweaks. Hope you all enjoy! Let me know what you guys think, I'm open to suggestions.
That looks awesome Adam!
I was thinking for that yellow and Red/pink skin, but i guess you did it on purpose. Is it how dead man's skin look like or somthing else?