Human Skull

[Belseth]

Since I started tinkering with Zbrush I’ve been dying to do a skull. Hard to believe the detail you can get. I’ll probably run it up one more subdivision and tighten it up in Projection Master. Pretty happy with the detail I’m getting with the standard sculpting tools. I don’t need a lower jaw for the image I did it for but I’ll do one first chance I get. Skulls come in handy.

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The image is a semi final. I still need to settle on final lighting and I’m adding clumps of hair and vines in Photoshop. It’s a small part of an image I’m working on I just wanted the res fairly high so I could resize and tweak it after the fact.

I wasn’t going to manitain this thread but a number of people asked me to post finals so I decided to go ahead after I let things cool for a few days.

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[weyvin]

Hi Belseth,

I like the skull
However, i find the forehead a bit flat… Or maybe it’s just me…
I look forward to see more…

Keep up the good work!

Cheers,

Kevin

[Belseth]

I already fixed it after I made the post. I’m still tinkering with it. The color one I posted was just screwing around. None of it is final I just wanted to see a few grouped together. I still need to do a little modeling then I’ll paint the actual maps.

One of the things I love about Zbrush is how fast I can modify it to act as different skulls. In a matter of seconds I can make it narrower or squatter. Maybe make the eyes more menacing. It’d even be really fast adding some coarse texture to make it more eroded looking.

[odhinn]

Great work…

[weyvin]

Oh…I swear the render wasn’t there when i first view this thread.

I take my words back about the forehead. They look great Belseth

U got a 5 from me

Cheers!

Kevin

[neuroticgothguy]

nice work though your anatomy is a bit off, but other than that nice work.

[system]

Awesome work! How long did it take BTW?

[Ron_Harris]

Kewl skull…dunno that much about anatomy but it looks good enough for me

Ron
[email protected]

[Belseth]

I started it yesterday afternoon in Lightwave then did the bulk of the shaping in Zbrush. The Lightwave part was the hard part and took the longest. I still have maybe another hour to go then coloring. I probably have 8 hours in it but that includes a lot of screwing around.

[Belseth]

I caught the problem and fixed it after the original post. The color one I posted an hour after the B&W ones. The real problem was it had these almost square corners that only showed from certain angles. It was a two minute fix. I still have a weird banding I have to get rid of on top of the head. I didn’t see it until it was lit properly. Smoothing should take it out.

[Belseth]

Can’t be too far off I built the original model over two views of a bone skull. I’m sure there’s a few differences and a lot of muscle attachments are missing. There’s a massive variation in human skulls. Some are very squat where as other are very elongated. The proportion on all parts can vary a lot. I didn’t slope the forehead quite as much on this as the reference skull because it was pretty radical. Some skulls are even fairly square in the forehead area. I’m sure the bottom is wrong but I just sketched it in for now. It’s for an illustration so I wasn’t worried about the bottom for now. The back is still loose even. The teeth may be somewhat wrong. The skull was toothless so they were largely from memory. I just grabbed a reference skull from storage so I may make a few change after I compare them.

[system]

Isn’t it amazing how fast work in ZBrush is compared to the more conventional programs? I’ll sit there for hours in Max trying to make the base mesh to export and then do something awesome in as little as 30 minutes. It’s sick! But anyway, your skull looks awesome and I think that even if something might be off in the anatomy, I don’t think your average person would be able to tell anyway. I mean who spends all day looking at skulls?

[Belseth]

It is funny that polygonal modeling is painfully slow and Zbrush is blindingly fast. IF I had a week to do this skull in Lightwave I couldn’t do it. With Zbrush it’s a fun evenings work.

Not sure where the bad anatomy comment came out of. I actually have spent a fair amount of time with skulls. I can wing one pretty well right down to the minor bones. The joke is the base mesh is taken from a real bone skull that I dropped into the background in Lightwave. The detail and final shaping are freehand. There may be some minor details off but it’s not exactly intended for medical school use. Skulls are like fingerprints, no two are alike. I’ve handled hundreds of them over the years and I’ve never seen two that were alike. The shape is pretty neutral. I’ll actually have to modify it for the final image because it doesn’t match the regional type. Personally in the end I say whatever looks good. If some one has a better one I’m thrilled. It’s the point of the the forums to inpire each other. If some one blows it away I’ll try harder the next time or tweak this one more than I might have otherwise. I’ve been tinkering with Zbrush in my spare time for a couple of weeks now so I figure it’s not too bad. Can’t wait for 2.5 and a better machine. Blows my mind the thought of pushing around 20 million polygons. The irony being that at present they don’t have a Linux version and XP and windows 2000 can’t handle more than 4 gig of ram, half that is system memory and you even have to throw a system switch inorder to get that much.

[neuroticgothguy]

i was mainly talking about the bone structure, as in its a bit off.

image

image

[Belseth]

Guess I better post my reference. Honestly I have never seen two that look alike. It’s why faces vary so much. The ones you posted don’t look like any of my reference. It’s all a matter of taste. I thought you were maybe referring to teeth count. I missed one on the top. Working 18 hours a day so I miss counted. Kind of have to sneak in Zbrushing when I can. I included a skull that has a very pointed top as well. Skulls can be either virtually flat on top or nearly hatchet shaped. Like I say overall shape is a matter of taste given the natural variations.

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[neuroticgothguy]

again, even in that photo your anatomy is off on your model, particularly the eye sockets, teeth and (crap forgot the name of it…) the nubby-things on the bottom ends of the skull are too far out and too far forward in reference to your model as well as they are a little too far down and too pointy.

other than that, its good.

*sorry if this is annoying you, i’m just a stickler for details and accuracy.

[Belseth]

Your issues not mine. I made more changes and mapped it. Got too much work to do to worry about it. It does what I need it to do. Thought I’d post it for the hell of it. Wasn’t trying to annoy anyone.

[weyvin]

Belseth,

You’re doing a pretty good job here and i don’t see anything wrong with your skull…

Neuroticgothguy,

I think you should rather be the sticker for details and accuracy to your own works rather than on other people’s work…
Everyone’s trying their best here to reach a good level including you and it’s not by annoying people with your critics that you’d improve…

Just sit back and analyze your work first before commenting on others!

Sorry about that Belseth… I know it’s ur thread
I just couldn’t help it…

Keep up the good work Belseth!

Kev

[odhinn]

I can remember a thread on CG talk in which guys were cutting up the proportions of the old masters themselves.
I agree with the earlier comments by Belseth that bones and anatomy are completely subjective. If it looks good that’s good enough. If you get a job in the industry and your boss says the model needs work, then and only then does the small details matter. Your skull is great… keep posting

[Belseth]

The rant seemed bizzarre. I’ve been a working artist, sculptor by trade, for a couple of decades now. The only time it’s not subjective is when you are doing something like medical reference. Whatever looks good is the rule.

Thanks again