Hey all… I’ve posted here before, but it’s been awhile. Thought i’d throw up some of my latest stuff and hopefully get some feedback on it!
thanks!
Manji
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You definitely know your way around ZBrushes features but now you have to work on your anatomy and proportions. There’s a difference between knowing the anatomy and being able to show it off more naturally. Back whn I first started to learn anatomy all of my drawings/characters pretty much looked like skinless bodies. It took some time to learn what areas need more skin and fat and what areas you can leave the cut in detail - that’s the true art of it IMO.
Also you’re doing that trick a lot of people do where you’re hiding a sloppy or semi-sloppy form with polypaint (or sculpted detail) to distract the observer from what is really happening on your mesh. A piece should be able to thoroughly hold it’s own untextured and be enhanced by the texture. Nice stuff though, keep at it!
Hey thanks for taking the time to comment…
I really appreciate the crit. as I have no immediately available peers to do much more than say “that’s cool”…
Do you think you could be a little more specific as far as where you find my work lacking? I’d really like some specifics… I’m always trying to improve my knowledge of form and anatomy… so I’m trying to see what your referencing.
Wolvie, for example, is obnoxiously (unrealistically) cut and bulky… but that’s intentional as he’s leaning more towards comicbook anatomy than realism…
as for the last comment where you say I’m using “the trick” to hide sloppy form/sculpt… i’m not really sure what that’s referring to…
the only thing i’ve consciously “hidden” are seams and parts of geometry (end of arms in the sleeves, necks in shirts… etc)…
if something looks “bad” or looks sloppy… that’s a problem and I need to fix it! 
again, thanks for the feedback… here’s hoping to get some more!
Anybody? Nothing to say about anything here?
eesh… THAT doesn’t inspire confidence.
Ok… no ones saying much… so I’ll post up my current WIP…
Charles Bronson… trying to define his form as much as possible at a low res before stepping up… his eyes are the most telling feature of his haggard visage… small stub nose… large lips…
I keep going back and forth… adjusting things… i’m at that point where I can’t tell if I"m making it better or screwing it up! HA1
what do you guys think?
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I could tell right off who it was, before I looked at the refference…Nice job so far.
You might want to modify the upper eyelids just a little so that the curves that are right above his pupils and iris have a downward curve as in the refference…a 45 degree angle between top eye lid and lower eye lid when seen from the side…That’s the only slight thing that I see off on your sculpt so far…but might be a key element/factor in getting a perfect likeness.
As far as anatomy goes, like I said, you clearly are familiar with it but not proficient in it. Personally I don’t buy the Wolverine “excuse” that it’s comic booky, especially with jeans that look that real (texture wise). I don’t doubt that a comic book look is your goal but there’s still a touch to pulling it off right. A lot of it is about style but there’s a ton of fundamentals that even make unrealistic styles super cool and very believable. What to leave out, what to leave in and how to size and balance not only the figure but all of the elements within a figure that eventually make up the whole of the figure.
Without getting into anatomy too deeply…
Wolverine’s Bicep into forearm is lacking the proper transition. Also his ribs are just lumpy as if the detail was being guessed at instead of known. His upper two abs are tucked inside of the rib cage oddly. His back is a little all over the place, you know what’s there for the most part but it comes across sloppy. Also on Wolverine it looks like you went to a high SubD level way too quck which brings me to my next observation. Wolverine, Manji and Grimpit all have this unrefined sculpy look to their forms (Manji to a lesser degree). It looks like everything is made out of the same material whether it’s metal, cloth or skin and it’s only the polypaint and texturing that tells the difference. A lot of the edges are have that lumpy look, get in there with a pinch or polish brush and refine hard surfaces more so they separate themselves from softer surfaces. Take Manji’s Kimono and make it a lesson in cloth and wrinkles.
as for the last comment where you say I’m using “the trick” to hide sloppy form/sculpt… i’m not really sure what that’s referring to…
the only thing i’ve consciously “hidden” are seams and parts of geometry (end of arms in the sleeves, necks in shirts… etc)…if something looks “bad” or looks sloppy… that’s a problem and I need to fix it!
I probably should have worded my usage of the term “trick” better. It’s not that I think you’re doing it on purpose but just a lack of experience. A big thing is your eyes don’t have a place to rest on two of your pieces; Grimpit & BadB. Everything is trying to stand out and “pop”, from your sculpted detail all the way to your texturing. If you think about it in photograph terms, a great picture looks amazing in full color and still has perfect contrast and balance when greyscaled. Just because you are capable of doing something doesn’t mean it’s a good design choice.
You’re definitely on the right path so just keep at it. Keep making more pieces, keep researching, use research to teach yourself and improve on things with every piece. You’ll get better and better in no time and when you look back at these pieces you’ll start to see what myself and others also see. Keep at it!
Isn’t that the truth! Try to make clones and use layers when possible. It only works per subD level but is non-destructive and adjustable in the positive and negative. There’s nothing worse than thinking you were going down the right road just to zoom out and find out you completely F-ed your piece up.
That Bronson is looking very nice.
@SpiritDreamer-
continuing to refine my brutha! It’s all about his eyes… have to get them absolutely right! his face is just so full of character… having a blast working on him.
thank you for the tips!
Thaaaats better 
Thanks so much for the taking the time to crit. man!
I still have to defend my Wolvie, but only a little;)… The statement that he was meant to have comic book proportions is completely true… not an excuse… I’m also not trying to hide anything with textures… i’ll gladly throw up any of these guys here untextured… what’s the point of asking for crits if I’m only going to try to hide the flaws?
That being said… however exaggerated I wanted his proportions to be… I wanted them still be ACCURATE anatomy wuse. (no biceps where his triceps should be, etc…) looking at some references I can see exactly what you mean with his torso anatomy being off… so i’ll go back to him and work on it more…
I think I can sum up the rest of everything you said by saying that all my stuff basically lacks refinement… that last 10%…
I was initially pretty pleased with the way Gimpit turned out… he’s one big chunk of geometry… built from scratch in Zbrush… no subtools… he was also my first foray into hard surface sculpting… so the hearing that the transitions and differences in the sculpted material need refining doesn’t really surprise me… personally, I thought it came across pretty well… but that’s why I posted here… to get others eyes on it…
the one thing that you mentioned to me that’s a no brainer is Manji’s rob… it’s always bothered me a bit… too smooth… too lumpy as you put it… i just moved on from him when I should have kept working… so again… a revisit is in order…
Believe it or not I’ve been doing 3D for a better part of 10 years… and while I’ve made several characters over the years both personal and professionally and created many animations for a varied assortment of businesses and companies… the large majority were fairly cartoony… high poly sculpting is something i’m pretty new at. Only been at it seriously for about 6 months… but i love it!
Really enjoying working on Bronson… I’ve been wanting to do a sculpt of him for a long while, had to do it before someone beat me to the punch 
Once I get the symmetrical sculpt of his basic shape out of the way… I’ll use a layer to create the more natural asymmetrical forms and detail… and bake those when I’m satisfied…
I use layers very sparingly now… thanks to Zbrush’s confusing ability to create files so large that it can’t actually read them later(over 4 gigs) I try to steer away from too many bells in whistles that make your file size grow…
anyway… sorry for rambling on… again thanks for the pointers and words of encouragement…
may I ask if you have a sketchbook or portfolio somewhere that I can peak at? Interested in seeing your stuff.
I don’t have much posted online yet (just some WIPs) but have a bunch of work to dump in a little bit. I have a blog over here - http://williamdettrey.wordpress.com/ -but haven’t updated as frequent as I wanted to (which is going to change).
I was heavy into 2D artwork in the past but have recently moved into 3D, combining both of those skill sets. Without getting into my whole life story all of my new work from here on out is like a rebirth of my creative life.
Update:
Haven’t had time to work on this for about a week… But finally got around to do a little tweaking today… so here’s a quick update…
probably move on to hair and clothing next…
thoughts? recognizable?
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another…
The addition of the hair really sells it as CB
Looks great man! The hair always frames the face just right when creating likenesses. It will point out the flaws or confirm the likeness and you nailed it.
Did a little anatomy adjustment on Wolvie… softened him up a little… Still needs some work… But I think it’s an improvement.
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Yeah man, absolutely! See you’re still able to keep the style you want but get the anatomy and execution down right. Definitely loving the improvements and the overall look is much more consistent. If you can get the back and the back of the arm to match with the front (anatomically) I would say this is a consistent looking complete piece.
Triceps tranisitioning towards elbow and shoulder are awkward, most of the back feels very “unsure of”. Inflate those trapezious muscles. You have the silhouette for the Lats but the detail that makes it a lat isn’t there and is obscured by random-esque details. You’re right there, just a little more reference and another round of what you just did (but focusing on the back) and this is a nice shining piece.
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Bronson rendered out and comp’d.
Hey looking good, just a quick observation, the ears on your most recent are too large. Also check your anatomy on the face the lips are a little strange.
Hope that helps
David
playing with S&H…
Ok putting Charles to rest for awhile… Might come back later on… but for now… fixed the eyes (rendered with mental ray) added hair via shave and haircut and adjusted the comp tempature…
hope it’s an improvement.
