ZBrushCentral

first anatomy study

ZBrush Artworks
#1

Hi there… after a while finally got some time time to play around with the new z-brush… I wish I could play with it every day!! :slight_smile: Actually now just using clay, move and starting to use a bit of the pinch brush.
Well my first serious attempt to an anatomy study. I spend quite some time making a as perfect as possible base mesh, where all muscles are kind of defined, i guess this makes sculpting a lot easier on the long run.
I’m quite happy the way it goes now, but starting to get to a stage where stuff get a bit lumpy. On one hand it gives it a bit of a clay-feel, but maybe i should go back a try to go a bit smoother…
Still W.I.P.; started to get some detail in the hands, and did little to nothing on the feet, but I hope y’all like it (for a first study :wink: ), and hopefully some of you veterans got some good tips for me.
Thanx
Mike

Attachments

3quart1.jpg

back1.jpg

side1.jpg

front1.jpg

#2

Hey there mate!

I am no veteran by any means mostly when it comes to anatomy bit since I’ve been where you are now and I know how
much I wanted to hear people giving me opinions I will go ahead and tell you what I think.

The main problem in my opinion is that the figure lacks structure in a way… I think you kinda rushed to a high subdiv lvl to
fast without plaing each part of the body beforehand. That’s why you have some areas where shapes are a bit confused and don’t know where to go…
if I may say so… I am talking about pecs, the abdominal muscles, the transition between lateralis and the back and also the transition between the
part that is around the pubic bone and the back…is that S curve there that you kinda missed. Also I think the leg muscles are a bit lumpy… I can see that
you know where they should be but when you sculpted them you kinda went to far with the volume without defining the actual form… which brings me to the next
idea… I don’t think you focused on one of the most important aspects when it comes to primary forms: Silhouette. What I did when I sculpted my first anatomy
study was to switch constantly on the Flat Shade material and check the silhouette. The thing is, the silhouette is a GREAT… THE GREATEST guide to what we call
primary and secondary forms (which basically are the muscles most of the time that eventually creates the internal shapes)

Another thing I wanted to tell you is about the Planes of the body. Braking the figure into planes can help you a lot… I mean A LOT in understanding anatomy
and how our body is built… I observed myself and other new people to Zbrush that for some reason we tend to ignore a bunch of very good brushes when we start…
I, for example, ignored HPolish for a long time… I thought is used only for hard surface modelling… Actually is used a lot for organic sculpting… Sometimes is
so much better than Smooth while doing what smooth would do and more. I started to use it while following along Scott Spencer’s book, Human Anatomy. I and I used it
for two things:

1 - Doing the planes of the figure… Before I would go crazy with clay and what not I would get down there and just plane the figure… (see the bellow attached picture)
2- Use it to get down the lumpyness or the confusion from some parts… if I would get into a position where I look to a muscle and I am not sure what goes where I would
get the HPolish brush and simplify (and also clean) it to the minimum or enough to understand where that particular shape should go. Usually I would stroke down the volume
in the direction I know that muscle should flow and try to form the shape on a basic level just with a couple of planes ( like you would take the head and reduce it to a bunch of
planes… is the same here or anywhere in any organic sculpture)

This being said, I want to show you a couple of things. I want to show you what I meant in what I said earlier by attaching a fwe images that are
based on Scott Spencer’s first book. I just hope it helps a little. I went in Photoshop and on the
image with the silhouette I marked a few essential lines in the human body… they are very important when you try to
get a believeble and in the same time beautiful human body. Also, I added the measures for the
eight head canon since I think you can use them… you might have to check that head… I think is to small… but it might be
something else that bugs me… just check where every landmark falls. You obviously go for an eight head canon so is very easy
to remember and see where each head landmark should be (chin,nipples,navel,pubic bone,upper thigh,bellow the knee and lower shin.)

Last thing and I promise I’ll stop after this :slight_smile: The direction of the muscles… Keep it in mind! If you look on any anatomy
book you can see where a muscle inserts and where are the muscle heads… Keep that flwo in mind and try to get it in your strokes…
try to stroke in that particular direction… It might help you!

That’s it! Sorry for bugging you with such a long wall of text … but I just started this reply and I remembered how many
things I learned while doing my first study on human anatomy and I thought that you might want to use some of these things…
Enjoy sculpting mate adn let me know if I can help you with anything more. If you want me to sahre some more learning sources
let me know and I can send you a list with books and tutorials that helped me and/or still help me a lot in learning this tool
and this art. Also, if you want to see what I came up with in my anatomy study feel free to drop by my sketchbook and you will find
the renders on the first page.

Peace!
ssplanes1.jpgasd.jpgssfigure2.jpgsilh.jpgsilhd.jpg

#3

Yumme,
Thank you so much, this is some priceless feedback you’re giving me… Haha I was already thinking about starting to pose, but looking at you’re kind explanations I will dive deeper into the basics, I obviously need it! You’re very right about me rushing it… first thing I need to be is more patient, and I know; In art school I was taught that painting (and maybe even more so for sculpting), it’s 80% looking/observing, and 20% ‘doing’… Well i’ve been out of this fine-art thing quite some time and totally in the rhythm of fast pacing motion graphics. Need some more Zen back in my life, and I must say simply the process of sculpting is already giving me much relieve…
So yes I will take your advice and look more (and better) into my references, and try to implement all these golden rules you’re suggesting.
Hope I can post some updates later this week.

thank you very much!!!

#4

No problem!

Enjoy sculpting mate! I might be still affected by a film I just saw but I wanna tell you this: enjoy the process… I think that’s the real joy… the road :slight_smile:

Anyway, looking foreword to seeing more from you! :slight_smile:

#5

Not much more to add, you already have some good information there, and Scott Spencers book is worth getting, I have it also. When starting out always get down the foundations, its just like building a house, the better the foundations, the better and stronger your house will be, your sculpts work on the same basis.

Go back to bones, that way you will have to know your landmarks, essential ones like the clavicle, Acromion process, Coracoid process, Sternum, Scapula, and so on, all the way down the body. Have the limbs the correct length, then as stated already, block out basic masses at low sub d levels, don’t sub divide too early. Use the Move, to help move large masses, Clay buildup, and Clay tubes to lay down masses and planes, inflate for fingers, toes, and between close limbs that are to touch each other.

Think harmony, the body is like a orchestra, every body part plays its role, and works well together, this means proportion, flow, curves, peaks, valleys in all the forms.
If you really want to nail it down well, pick one limb to work on at a time, this gives you 100% concentration on one area. I found when I first started I had a concentration, patience tolerance of only 4 hours, before I started rushing things. Because my anatomy was way off it would take much longer to work on a area to have it looking half decent, because I knew I had the whole body to do, I rushed it, this is where the sub dividing comes in too soon, and there are lumps and bumps all over the place.

Good luck. Daniel.

#6

Now I’m curious to know what film you’re talking about. Let me know, mate!

#7

Click… that’s the name of the movie… quite silly one might say but it certainly touched me in some way :slight_smile:

And here is something I forgot to give you… a side silhouette with the same guy I used for the front silhouette.

Happy sculpting!
side silh.jpg