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muscles and fat...

ZBrush Artworks
#1

I´m maybe not the onlyone who have noticed that fat is like a forbidden thing in 3D… I´ve seen many, many anatomy threads and in allmost everyone of them they have done the “superhuman” form… Only muscles and no fat at all… If you look around in the “real world” you will see that most people dont have those big muscles. You will see that they also got fat. If you are one of those who are struggeling for as much realism you can have. Then you need to stop thinking muscles! You need to think FAT! :lol: I think this is maybe the hardest part with realistic 3D…

This message comes like a note and a tip… I dont mean to offense anyone. :ex:

#2

Personally i think it’s much more of a challenge to sculpt all muscles then a blob of fat :ex:

#3

Being 42 and looking in a mirror is quite depressing…

I like to see and model my “alter ego’ish” type of characters to give me that much needed fantacy boost and to wad up reality in a tiny little ball of denial and push it down deep inside to fester until I’m 43.

#4

Sculpting a fat, believable character is as hard to achieve as a superhuman one. Those are two aspects of human anatomy, and a good artist had to know how to do both.

As for me, I just finished a fat monster, it won’t be a good exemple here, but I plan to do a fatty one of theses days. :wink:

Bye !

#5

I feel that fat is as difficult to model as muscles also, as you need to be aware of the underlying muscles to model the fat on top of for it to be believable. I always exagerrate everything anyway, so my fatties always come out REALLY fat…:lol:

Your suggestion is a nice reminder, so no offence taken, Lejonet…

Dickie

#6

Well I’m sure there is much more of a market for supermen than there are for fattys, but I agree that both are necessary and both are difficult. If anything though I suspect that a truly realistic fat character is MORE difficult to sculpt than a muscle-man.

Long-time artists and art students know that to create a beautiful surface you have to have a good understanding of the underlying structure. We take anatomy very seriously, and try to be aware of the bones and muscles before concentrating on the details of skin and clothes. If you need to have an understanding of the nude to invent realistic clothed figures, then how much more do you need to understand the musculature to invent realistic fat figures? For this reason I expect most exercizes and studys to focus much more on thin or well-muscled figures rather than fat figures.

And then there is the idea that art should be not only a depiction, but an idealization of reality. I have a lot of sympathy for that, and it may be part of why I’m getting tired of seeing all the hacked up undead cyborg-demons and stuff. But I also respect the idea that art should be a reflection of particular individuals as they really are.

I look forward to learning more about not only the musculature, but the way fat moves under the skin depending on the pose taken by a figure. And one day I hope to be able to convincingly portray cellulite.

#7

I´m glad see some people reply to this thread. :smiley: You got a good point there Wildsketch. You said it was very important to understand the underlying structure of the object…etc…etc… But why doesnt anatomy threads start from skelleton to muscle masses to skin… I´ve seen one thread like this… Before

#8

Well when I draw, I occasionally do sketch a skeleton, but much more frequently I begin a drawing with what I consider to be the most prominent forms and lines of the body, and construct up from that.

I think the same is true of the drawings and models of many other people too. You create the basic form, and add details for the most prominent features. You draw the muscles, where they are primary, and place knobs for the kneecaps, elbows and such where the bones show through the skin.

I’ll conceed that many people’s drawing style derives as much from superhero comics as from art and medical anatomy references, but I think that a lot of people are starting to move to a more naturalistic subject matter, as the tools (Zbrush prominently) are now capable of it and people realize that it takes much more skill.

Another thing I thought of that I had neglected to mention earlier is that it is very difficult to animate a fat character, or someone with thick or stubby limbs. The influence of the bones is much easier to set up if the character is lean. And its better not to have to figure out how to make the two parts of the limb squish against each other as they do in real life when a joint is fully bent. The ideal is something like Jack the Great Pumpkin King. But I think most people settle for a compromise of a generic skinny character.

#9

Sculpting fat is not easy… Actually the one thing that ive noticed just starting in these threads is how overemphasized a lot of models are with muscularity, depends on the project of course, but ive seen things like “hand study” and it looks like a hand if you tore all the skin and fat off, not really that accurate would you say?

Having superhuman type models is great, even Michelangelo’s figures were superhuman, because he chose to see it so, but if you look at an everyday average male figure, there is very very very little muscularity, if at all, seen. To not account for fat while sculpting would be falling into what is “trend” or “normal”.

#10

I have to agree that theres a severe lack of fat, ugly and less than perfect people inthe models in CG in general. Cliches such as ‘muscle bound bloke with weapon’, along with monsters and barbie doll type female figures are a pet hate of mine unless done extrmely well. People are rarely perfect and its a shame that modelling as a whole doesn’t reflect this.

Of course we’re all prone to fullfiling our fantasies while modelling, but sometimes a little bit of a reality check is needed. Just because somethi8ng has good muscular anatomy doesn’t necessarily make it a good model or image. But it depends if your going for realism or something more stylistic or not.

Wayne…

#11

Heroes in movies & comics are the same, why should 3D be any different…

I’ve actually seen plenty of 3D with less than perfect bodies etc…