Human Male Bones WIP

[MatrixNAN]

Hey Ernia,

Thanks man your totally right I saw it earlier and kept meaning to get around to it and then I eventually just totally forgot about it. Thanks for reminding me because I completely over looked the ear again. Yeah the ear is too small. It should come up to the edge of his eyebrow and come down as low as the edge of his upper lip and well it doesn't. It needs a small adjustment upward and a good bit of an adjustment on the lower part.

Thanks that was the major thing the head needed for an adjustment. Thank you thank you. I need to probably tweak the nose at some point and time for doing more of a detail pass on it on the underside of the nostrals. I have not gotten around to it yet. I am only part machine, cyborg if you will. lol Sucks when going through metal detectors at the airport. I always get the wand.

I am going to do another 2 day blitz this weekend on it hopefully I will have the hands and feet done too. Female model to come after this one.

Cheers,
Nate Nesler

[MatrixNAN]

Hey Guys N Gals,

Well I am still refining the form. The arms are getting a massive overhall and they are defantly still in Work In Progress. I think my biggest problem with the arms is the radial bracialis. I am sure I butchered the spelling of that but that muscle running along the forearm is giving me a lot of trouble. I moved the elbow back came to the conclusion that the elbow is not in the center of the arm because the forearm is actually longer than the bicep. Ugh that was defantly throwing off the placement of the forearm muscles. I think I made the radial bracialis too large and I need to shorten its width. The underside of the arm is pretty good along with one side of it. The top and the side facing the front of the character needs a lot of work still. I did a massive overhaul of the legs and now they are looking a lot better. I also reworked the neck and it still needs some more touch ups. I still have not made it to the hands and feet. I think this is just going to take me awhile to get it right. I fixed the shoulders on the back some more also. Whatever help you guys can give me on nailing down those arms better would be of a great help. They are very frustrating to nail down. Comments but mainly Crits are very welcome. Please rip me apart. :) ;)

[]

Cheers,
Nate Nesler

Attachments

[Defago]

have you checked out this model zach petroc put up for download a while back? It should really help you see how to deal with the arm connections.

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=20709

while not exactly proportionally perfect- it really helps out on some of the muscle areas.
Also- if you havent seen his dvd i think its the single most helpful zbrush dvd out there. the man is phenomenal with anatomy.

[MatrixNAN]

Hey Defago,

Yeah I have it loaded up on a second computer and I look at it from time to time for reference. I used the model as a reference more in the beginning than I do now because so many of the forms are generalized that I can't see really how this connects in with that. It is an amazing sculpture in 3D but the I am relying on more medical references at this point and they are helping me a lot more. Yeah I have seen his video, and I plan on buying it in a few months plus I plan on taking 3 figure sculpture, and 1 figure drawing classes from UGA which will really help I think. I am going to post on his thread a special thank you once I finish the model. Unforniately one of my best references Primal Pictures CD the Arm CD cracked into because they don't use the best plastic for their CDs I guess. So I am without a 3D medical Arm reference other than some pictures on a site. I think I will buy those on a DVD soon which will really help. When Zack is talking about the different medical bones and muscles he is not kidding when he says that it helps to have an understanding of where those muscles connect into and how the create that shape and form. Thats why I am relying more on medical references at this point because it is making the largest impact on my work. Later on I will take a shot at trying to understand how fat lays ontop of the muscles, bones and veins but for right now I am just worried about the mucles, bones and veins. The problem is that Zacks Model the forearm is rotated facing out forward. Mine is rotated down to the ground. So that changes the rotation of the muscles on the forearm. I now think he is very wise for rotating those hands out like that because that keeps from having to wind and rotate those muscles as much around the forearm. So its a bit of a nightmare for me. His forearm muscle only needs to rotate 90 degrees where as mine has to rotate 180 degrees. Thats the primary reason I am struggling so much. It makes a big difference. I agree Zack is an amazing artist. ;) :) Hopefully after my Masters I will be closer to his skill level. :) ;)

Cheers,
Nate Nesler

[Defago]

I hear you on that rotation ordeal.
It helps with the lack of twisting, but most importantly- Im sure you’ve seen enough medical shots- I’ve yet to see one with the palms rotated downward.

Im too busy at the moment to sketch overtop of some models- but hopefully tommorrow evening I’ll have time.
What really helped me was focusing on the elbow first and finding the muscles origins. Once that confusing mass of muscle and tendons is taken care of, its much easier to follow the muscles around to their insertions toward the wrist.

Just to throw out some more references (that you’re probably aware of):
freedom of teach dvd (he does just what you’re doing, but in maya)
goldfinger’s anatomy for the artist.

[MatrixNAN]

Hey Defago,

Thanks a bunch man. Yeah I don't know of any either off, and I have a ton of reference material. I have one book where they have 8 views of the muscles from a drawing book. But instead of basically rotating a camera around the arm they actually twisted rotated the arm which of course totally throws off everything because that means the muscles are changing from drawing to drawing. Its almost useless. I was trying to follow them only to have the different rotations throw me off at each veiw.

Yeah I saw the sample videos from that work, and I know maya along with XSI, Houdini, Max, Lightwave, Blender, and ZBrush so it was not a problem translating it into another program. I was eyeing the medical sculpture more so though. Thats what I really want to get in a few months along with the new Primal Pictures DVD set. If you have not checked out the primal pictures series do so it is really awesome. Best medical reference that I have seen yet. I can spin the models in 3D also. I do still have the should CD and they have the elbow on that CD however it stops right and the elbow so I can’t see where the muscles lead beyond.

I have the goldfinger book its pretty good but I have been relying on the Atlas of Human Anatomy for the Artist by Stephen Rogers Peck more so than goldfingers. Although the 2 of them make up my 2 major references. I also look at at Burne Hogarth too from time to time because some times it helps to look at the generalised form to help see the large shapes and bulges formed by all those little muscles. Some times I find it easy to get lost in defining all those muscles and forget about the over all shape and those books help put it back in perspective.

I have to get that Primal Pictures set that has been my best resource now and man I am missing not having all of it. Thanks again.

Cheers,
Nate Nesler

[system]

Hi Nate- thought I would bring my contributions to the conversation into the forums instead of limiting them to the Hallowed Halls of Academia

Before:

In the earlier arm, you had the brachioradialis rotating naturally from the lateral origin at the distal humerus to the lateral carpals. This produced a smooth and believable rotation over the whole length of the radius. The new arm has the brachioradialis looking like it is wrapped around the arm a complete 360 degrees (like the juice bottle). You have the angle of the pollicis group (overlapping the distal radius superior to the thumb) mostly correct but the group only has 2 muscles. The distal end of the brachioradialis passes under the pollicis group and forms a smooth delta in the middle of the forearm there. I can only guess that you added those extra bumps after noting the pronator and the flexor pollicus down there? Those muscles are relatively deep and wouldn’t show up nearly as developed as you have them- nor as long.

Take a look at Plate 48 inside of Fritz Schider’s “An Atlas of Anatomy for Artists” (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0486202410/ref=sr_11_1/102-3262112-3488915?%5Fencoding=UTF8). Despite how errr… RUSTIC… some of the images are, this is an excellent reference for an anterior rotation of the forearm and the effect on the involved muscles.

EDIT: There’s a copy of Plate 48 in your In box.

Cheers yourself, kid.

Chris

Attachments

[MatrixNAN]

Hey Guys N Gals,

I want to give a special thanks to Chris Volion for his help and illustrating where I was making my mistakes. His help made major improvements in my work on my characters arm. I had the misunderstanding that the muscles wrapped underneath the arm well they don't the kind of wrap on the side of it and the arm is not flat on the bottom its rounded and that roundness is do to the placement of these muscles. Those references were great chris they made all the difference. I have the book you were refering to, and I just pulled up the pages with regards to the arm and oh man did micheangelo nail it. Dang it I am studing him even more for now on for the human form. I know he exaggerated the form on purpose but I prefer it to see the muscle systems. I am currently working on the hands. They are far from done. I have done nothing more than the inital rough in and the large placement of forms. I have also started to do detailed sculpting of the muscles and tendons in the underside of the hand as a first rough pass. Generally I end up modeling the same forms many times before I get the surface built up the way I like and smoothing it out over and over again. It really helps me define the surface and get those shapes going and nail down my placement and forms. I also reworked the head a bit and the back got some touch ups. I have not touched the feet at all so they look pretty bad right now. I guess the question I have for the community is whether or not I should cut in the detail form on the arms the way I did the legs? The head needs more work, the nose needs more work, etc. If you guys see anything that is off please shout it out because I am getting closer and closer to the detail stage. Eventually I will sculpt in a lot of the veins and their placement. I have not decided if I am going to use projection master to stroke them on from the brushes or if I can just going to sculpt them the way I have been doing the rest of the model. I don't have enough divisions to do texturing or skin pores. I need at least 1 to 2 more divisions to get good detail on the character. I think I will wait until ZBrush 2.5 comes out for that. Chris I loved the reference to the drink bottle I was laughing my butt off when I read that. lol I Think I used that bottle as a reference the first time I modeled his arm. lol I love the jokes man have no worries there. Thanks to everyone you guys have been a big help.

[]

Cheers,
Nate Nesler

Attachments

[MatrixNAN]

Hey Guys N Gals,

I am not done with the feet because I still need to add veins and see if I can't detail them one level further and do a bit of touch up but they are getting there. These feet are over exaggerated so that I can smooth them out to the desired structure for other characters. Crits are very welcome. Comments too. :) ;)

[](javascript:zb_insimg(‘36386’,‘CharacterManFeetBottom_01.jpg’,1,0))

Cheers,
Nate Nesler

Attachments

[MatrixNAN]

Hey Guys N Gals

WIP Female Study this one has a very long ways to go but I am doing it much faster after working on my man so much.

Current Progress:

Cheers,
Nate Nesler

Attachments

[MatrixNAN]

Hey Guys N Gals,

Well I updated the face quite a bit fixed the nasal lavial fold. I also fixed the nose and the ears. Then I reworked the forearms and also detailed etched all of the muscles on the body. I still have to do the hands up and do a final detail pass on the feet then I can do the vein sculpts. Its starting to look pretty descent but the forearms need a lot of work. I saw a bunch of my mistakes when I was visiting with Bill where he had the Freedom of Teach Medical Model. I am seriously jealous man seriously jealous. I hope you guys like Comments but even more so crits welcome. [] Cheers, Nate Nesler

Attachments

[womball]

I’m doing something similar with a full body male anatomy study, just haven’t posted the work here yet. Some areas that I think would improve your model:
The hands are too thick, as are the fingers. I’d suggest forcing the bones out more than you think is necessary. Than smoothing it out slightly. Also the whole arms look too puffy, I think they could be scale down a bit y-axis wise. And they seem too short. My arms go to about halfway down my upperlegs. Yours goes about to the hips. I think it looks awkward to have heavy muscles and short limbs.

Does the model have skin or not? Its not apparent since on the face it looks like he has the start of older man’s face with drooping skin in the cheeks. His body looks like its hinting at a muscle study since your showing some of the muscle attachment points to the bones. This is very apparent in the knees. I don’t think you usually see the complete Sartorius muscle on weight lifters.

The lower eyelid is jutting out too far and should cling closely to the eyeball. Also trying using z-sub of 25 intensity. Mark your lines out on a higher division level than smooth those lines.At the edges of the lines you can than use a z-inflate tool with a intensity of 5 and puff up the muscles slightly. Just keep in mind that muscles are stretched and interlock with one and other frequently.

[MatrixNAN]

Hey Womball,

Thanks for the crit I needed it. I can see now what you are talking about on the lower eye lid and you are completely right. I didn't even realise that it was sloping in at an angle like that. I just completely missed it thanks a bunch man. The hands I just have not had the time to really do yet. They kind of look like toad hands at the moment meaning they are way way too fat. I pretty much sculpt out the bones and then sculpt up the rest of the tissue which is pretty much how I did the feet and they just need a bit more tweaking too. Oh he is suppose to have skin but almost no fat at all. I added some fat in the chest and a few other places but I want it to be pretty close to a muscle bone study that I can just smooth out for whatever the requirements are for some male character. He is going to be my base male characters that I create other male characters from. So I am trying to get everything as close as I can but I don't want to add on the fat that a normal person normally has. That is something I plan on doing on a per character basis. I keep bouncing back and forth on the arms too skinny too thick I can't seem to make up my mind. I mean I look at them sometimes and think they are too big and then I see picture of Arnold and Vin Diesal and I start thinking they are too think because those guys arms are just massive. I will trying thinning them out again. The arm length is correct though I just went back and double checked. They are the length you are suggesting they should be. I really look forward to seeing your post because there are very few and far between muscle bone studies. I would find someone else's work to be very useful as a reference against my own. I would end up correcting some more stuff from it. The arm length was measure from the tips of the fingers along the underside of the arm in a straight line until it reached the armpit. Then I rotated that line down along his side starting from the arm pit to check its length.

Arm Length:
[]

Cheers,
Nate Nesler

[womball]

Btw I’m a Nate too! My thread is up as well. If you want larger arms I would make the chest larger to hold them! Arnold has a pretty broad chest. And watch those feet, people tend to forget them. They are similar to the hand, very wedge like shape and pretty narrow.Also the bones dramatically affect the shape a lot, so I think you could push the the bones in the toes more.

[MatrixNAN]

Hey Guys N Gals,

Hand reworked well one of them is done, and I am finishing the other hand. Hopefully I can put the final touches on the rest of the model like the lower eyelid and the veins. []

Cheers,
Nate Nesler

[womball]

Very nice progress! Just define the features a bit more and you should have a strong hand, I think. This is probably the easiest object.

[MatrixNAN]

Hello Guys N Gals,

I have finished sculpting in the gross anatomy and now I am sculpting in the Veins. Womball/Nate I am not trying to do the same thing you are instead I am trying to do something of an in between straight muscle and bones and full person with skin and fat. I am planning on using this in between character to define a realistic looking human males of different fat densities. The fingers are out splayed out and so in that position the knuckles don't show much at all because the bones are in complete alignment between the carpals and phalaxes. I also did not define the pulled skin on the fingers because that is something I would do for a realistic person and not for the in between character like him. On another note I think should should check the length of your characters feet in that I believe them to be too long. Also you should check the stomach muscles again in your sculpt because they are not shaped in that manner. Each one has its own shape going down the stomach. Some pictures simplify this and they are wrong. Also the muscles come in from the sides and form into the stomach. You should also have a look at your lower jaw bone aka manible and how it hinges into the skull which you did but then you pulled the jaw bone out which it does not. The jaw bone drops straight down. The muscles pulling and hinging with the jaw cause the buldge on the sides of the head so you should go and have a look back at that. The best thing I can think of for a reference of the head is already in the gallery. I think studying it would really help your sculpt as it is very accurate. Keep up the good work. I took your comments on the lower eye lid and fixed it already thank you very much for that crit I totally missed that when I was sculpting him. After you said it I saw it immediately. :) ;) I just have not posted all of the updates that I have done to the character.

[]

Cheers,
Nate Nesler

[womball]

Good work! I will check out those areas tonight. I printed those references earlier, but I didn’t pay attention to that area as much. I will see what I can do with the jaw. The abs should be more irregular? There is a space between the abdominal rectus and abdominal oblique. Maybe it should be even smaller gap?

[MatrixNAN]

Hey Womball,

Yeah thats the case and your placement of the muslces for the stomach is too high also. Here is a good reference for it.

Anatomy For The Artist

Here are some other great book references:
Atlas of the Human Anatomy For The Artist
An Atlas of Human Anatomy For Artists

Hogarth Books: Not totally accurate but they help define shape and form that you lose just looking at anatomy images.
Dynamic Hands
Dynamic Anatomy
Drawing The Human Head
Dynamic Figure Drawing
Dynamic Wrinkles

Some of these are drawing books but it does not really matter they describe proportions and what not. The only real big difference is that the drawing has to deal with foreshortening and we do not when we are sculpting. I have all of these books, and I used all of them to do my sculpt. I also used the primal pictures CDs and I had a look at the freedom of teach model. All very useful stuff. I hope this helps.

Cheers,
Nate Nesler

[MatrixNAN]

Hey Guys N Gals,

I need your help and advice. I am still not totally happy with the back and shoulders on my character. I did a character sculpt of the back of a character about a year ago, and I just ran across it and I was thinking I liked it maybe more than what I currently have on my character. In this sculpt I showed the muscles below the lats etc but I am more interested in the shoulders. The shape for the major forms of the shoulder is not rounded out from the Scapula like it should be but I was more looking at the way the muscles flowed and how they connected togther. Tell me what you guys think.

[attach=38202]MaleMusclesSculpt_01.jpg[/attach]

Cheers,
Nate Nesler

Attachments