Sculpt for Frazetta style comp

[robotball]

Hi folks,

I just completed Scott Spencer's Adavanced texturing class and ZBrush anatomy class at the Gnomon School of Visual Effects. Great class, fantastic teacher. I wanted to post some images of the progress I made but I'm also looking for anatomy critiques. I'm taking my class project file and posing him for a Frank Frazetta style composition that will be rendered in Maya. The character has been marooned on a distant planet, he has fashioned weapons and armor from the pieces of his spacecraft. the fact that he has no shoes is an indication of how truly screwed he is. His only friend is a soccer ball named Wilson...wait a minute...anyways, please feel free to comment. I 'd like to thank Scott for his great class - one of the best I've taken at Gnomon, as well as Ryan Kinglsien who was a guest lecturer for one session. The first few images show the progress of my model through the course - he started as ZSpheres. Some of the equipment in the last images were created in Maya and ZBrush. Looking forward to texturing him....

[Johannes]

Hi!,

Great to hear you had fun in Scott's classes. I took them 6 months ago and the amount of info is just immense, and worth many times the financial and time costs (disclosure: I'm a Gnomon alumni so I may be biased ).
Looking at the model in the cruciform pose, the overall feel of the front view torso and head looks really nice, especially the flow from the pectoralis to the front head of the deltoid and there is a very interesting flow along the ribcage and a very nice suggestion of the serratus muscle. The area that feels like you might want to check into is the upper leg. There seems to be a bit of muddiness about the insertion location of the Rectus Femoris into the pelvis (at the anterior superior spine of the ilium), at the moment the insertion seems a bit closer to the trochanter, displacing the Tensor Fascia L. and making it seem that a layer of tissue is placed in the middle of the Inguinal fold. If you have Goldfinger's Human Anatomy for Artists, there's a good diagram on p220 that shows the both the front and side shots of the structure. I think it may also be that the present structure is making the Vastus Lateralus seem very underdeveloped (unless you are going for a look suggesting extremely low body fat and very long muscle structure), but I would definitely first check if the upper structure of the muscles inserting into the pelvis may be throwing this off.
One question, the cruciform sculpts' face is really nice and has some really nice looking structure around the mouth, but some of this seems to be missing in the posed renders, also the chin looks very different and less elegant than in the cruciform pose. It could just be my imagination or something to do with the angle and or lighting of the posed renders, but it would be a shame to lose any of the really nice work you did on the jaw/mouth area (Scott had to spend far too much time trying to show me how to do this area, so I got a lot more aware of how hard it is to do it well and you really did a nice job in the cruciform #2 render)
Sorry about using all the anatomy terminology but Scott kind of got me in the habit with the argument of that it leaves the least ambiguity about what one's talking about, but he probably chased your class around the same way , so hopefully it's ok.
Definitely keep going on this sculpt, I think you could end up with a really nice piece once. Hope to see more from you soon!,

Johannes

[robotball]

That's great but do you have any specific comments?

Seriously, thanks for the feedback, exactly what I was hoping for. I'll take another look at the leg. The arms and elbows are another place where I feel less secure.

I just started working on the face on the posed version, giving him a bit of an expression and trying to go towards a more Frazetta style hero but it does need more work. The main thing is to make sure he doesn't look constipated.

BTW Johannes, your dancer image is going to look great as a full color image in my book

Introducing Zbrush

[Johannes]

Hi Eric!,

Great to hear from you. My email is down and I'm about to change email address if they don't fix it...
You know, I was looking at the sculpt and looking at the weapon he's carrying, and there was something that might be a neat touch to add if you feel like it. The guy is using a sword and most people incorrectly think that that would develop the biceps, but the actual areas that tend to hyperdevelop and/or hyperdefine much more are the brachioradialis and all the extensor and flexor digitorum sets. This is something that Barry Windsor-Smith used to do on his old Conan comic art, and I seem to remember seeing Frazetta pieces with a similar level of attention to the forearm. In real life I've even seen a few hard cases like one of my old sword teachers where the swell of the forearm actually ended up larger than the swell of the bicep area (it looks a bit odd when it's that extreme, sort of like Popeye gone real). As I said, the idea of emphasizing the forearm a bit is only a thought, but it might help link the character to reality in a fun way, especially given the nice suggestion of weight that his sabre has. Looking forward to seeing what you do next with the sculpt.

Johannes

[robotball]

Great idea, I love it! I'll work on it this weekend.

[robotball]

I made some changes based on Johannes' comments. Anatomy nerds, feel free to comment!!