yeh good job man, told ya the upside down trick helps… i know its strange, but it does help when u least expect it… i always use it. One other thing i picked up on though, and i just checked it out now… Is the back of the jaw bone… the point where it angles up… its ment to be inline with the teeth, so there is more of an upward angle from the from to the back of the jaw.
Thanks 
I see what you mean about the lips, but I think the problem is actually mostly with the lower lip. I put too much of a defining border around the edges of the bottom lip. The protrusion of the lower lip is supposed to be more dramatic in the center, and virtually nonexistent on the sides, and any additional sense of a lip line would come from color. Clearly, I overcompensated for the lack of color by creating far too much “line” in the lower lip. I’ve adjusted that part of it, and it makes a pretty big difference. Just another lesson learned (to not create lines with form where color information is responsible for that.)
I know exactly what you mean about the jaw - an earlier version (yesterday) had even more of an angle, but I realized that it was off and fixed it. In an orthoganal view, the shape looks more “textbook” - so I think I’m going to keep the jaw as is.
Now - I need to finish fixing my fingernails (it’s been bugging me, I have some geometry errors in lower sub-d’s due to poor technique on the first pass - only 3 to go.) Once that’s done I’ll be fixing the interchange between pec-delt-bi’s then to finish the feet. Then he’s “done” for initial sculpting phase… after which - retopo, project details onto final mesh, then paint. Then I’ll try my hand at rigging in Lightwave, since I’ve never done it before… and if that works well, I’ll make a nice posed “final pic” type thing. 
I am starting to wonder if the skin detail wouldn’t have been better to wait until the retopology was done - seems like that would have been a better workflow. But then again, if projecting the details goes flawlessly, then I suppose this workflow will work just as well, and it’s nice to know I can change something in the shape while working on surface details if needed without worrying about topology at all. So, I’m undecided at this point on that issue.
OK, so thankfully I had some time to work on this over the weekend. I’m pretty sure I got everything fixed. I first finished working on the fingernails (they were driving me crrraaazy! lol) and then I fixed up the pec/delt/bi interchange and flow of the pecs as suggested. When I finished, I compared before and after, and it was one of those moments where you go… “YYYEEEEAHHHh… that’s it!” as if somehow you felt all along that it hadn’t previously been quite right.
I have to admit, I was a bit nervous going into it. I didn’t want to destroy the “good parts” of what I had done, but it was what it was. As it turns out, it wasn’t bad at ALL… in fact it didn’t take nearly as long as expected. I just went down to subd level 1, moved stuff around, and then one subdivision at a time, tweaked it until it was done. Best of all, I lost virtually no surface texture. I have to say I’m just loving ZBrush atm.
Anyhow, so tell me what you think. In the meantime I’ll start fixing the feet (a few minor issues) before it’s “done”. Before anything though, a HUGE thank you to everyone that contributed their wonderful and generous advice, it is truly appreciated.
FIRST SCULPT FINISHED!!
I still have to retopologize, color, and add hair… I might wait for 4R2b to add head and body hair… not sure still. Anyhow, the primary sculpting is done… unless someone can spot a major flaw or something. Kinda hoping not, but I’ll take my licks where they come since it undoubtedly would improve my work anyhow… so comments and crits welcome as always.
Great job! 
I’m not an expert but the proportions seem a bit off, like the arms and the legs seem a bit short.
I think the appearance of short appendages might just be that he’s thick (in the bodybuilder way) - for example, I took a look at your sculpt of that girl (very nice model btw) and her legs measure as a touch shorter than my guy’s legs, ratio-wise (leg:body height ratio)… BUT your character’s legs look quite long due to the fact that she’s extremely skinny - in spite of being technically shorter than my guy’s legs. It’s interesting how girth can change perception of length. 
In any case, thanks so much for checking this out. It means a lot. :D:D
At any rate, personally, I like the proportions of his arms/legs/body… but I’m open to the possibility that his proportions look off to others - if they look off to everyone else too, then it might be worth playing with more. As it is, I like that he has that mesomorph/natural bodybuilder physique, and am afraid to change the shape too much and lose that quality. Muscularity isn’t everything to a finely built physique… thick arms and legs, broad shoulders and v shaped torso (especially), etc., all play a role in acheiving a certain look.
Pretty good work. Wish I was built like that. Ha!
The arms and legs seem a bit short because his chest is too massive. I checked the proportions and he has the correct bone structure, but his chest makes his arms look small. It is not aesthetically pleasing. Either make his arms bigger or his chest smaller if you really want to achieve the mesomorph natural bodybuilder look (I would make the arms bigger). Otherwise he’ll just be a noob on steroids who bench presses too much.
Go take some time looking at bodybuilder references, and compare the chest to the arms. I did this and found that your arms are a bit too thin.
Also, you still haven’t fully fixed the gap between his bicep and his underarm.
Here is a reference that might help you out
HAHAHhahahaha… that’s pretty hilarious!!
One of the most interesting aspects of this process of leaning to sculpt human form has been discovering my own biases. It’s amazing how much one’s own psychology goes into their art. To explain what I mean, I should give a sentence or two of my recent history… I used to weigh 410 lbs (186 kg), and lost 241 lbs (109 kg - no surgery, I did it the old fashioned way) and the consequence of having been so large is that I now have considerable amounts of loose skin… so in my bodybuilding efforts (which I started a couple of years ago) I’ve been very concerned with traps, pecs and delts in order to lift the skin into a more normal appearance. (Though I do work the entire body - those are the body parts I tend to “prize” the most.) These things that I have been so focused on creating in myself have come to life in my sculpt, even though I didn’t consciously make them disproportionately larger - which I find utterly fascinating!
That being the case, I trust I’ll fare better in the bias department when it comes to sculpting women, since I have no personal biases, only preferences.
I will definitely do that… in fact, as part of my lifestyle change, I have made a number of friends who are also into natural bodybuilding (one is actually a pro), so I’ll check out their photos… easy peasy. I’ll probably run this by them to and see if they think he’s been hitting the flyes too hard (or not working the bis and tris enough) hahahaha…
Hmmm… that bit I based on what I could feel under my own skin… What I represented visually was what I could feel, in terms of how much of the bicep and pec overlapped, and how far up the bulk of bicep seems to go. Obviously, everyone’s tapers into a tendon, but that doesn’t mean it’s right as it is… perhaps it’s a case of individual morphology, but I want this to be “right” (in the range of acceptable human morphology), so if it’s clearly “wrong” then yes, it needs to be fixed. Maybe that was a mistake using myself as a reference (again), since my own morphology isn’t quite normal… lol. I’m gonna have to look at some reference photos on that as well I suppose.
I really appreciate you taking the time to explain things in such detail, and to even take the time to make diagrams and such - it really is quite thoughtful, and much appreciated.
Yeah you losing weight explains alot. I know a guy who was overweight during his teens, so his chest grew larger than the usual, and now that he has lost weight he has a massive ribcage. It looks good as long as you tone up the rest of your body. I seem to have the opposite problem due to asthma. Congrats on losing weight by the way. I started bodybuilding about 4 months ago and I’m gaining pretty rapidly. Have to stop for a month though due to a kink in my neck.
So yeah your sculpt looks good, but I think the main thing is the chest and the underarm bicep/pec spot.
Tthe hands and feet look really good btw.
hahah… yeah me too. (I’m working on it!!) …and thanks!
Me too! Just par for the course I guess…
Exactly!
Ooohhh newbie gains - they’re the best Sorry you got sidelined, but it will come back fast when you start training again. It’s far better to heal from an injury than to push yourself and risk making it worse imo. I had a shoulder issue, and thought it was all better, and reinjured it (not even during training), so you can’t be too careful. Best of luck!!
Thanks… the hands were fun.
Just found a great site that contains the good free images from 3d.sk
This photo here is a good one for studying the underarm/bicep spot.
http://fineart.sk/photo-references/male-standing-poses/08
Justin - thanks for the great site link! That site is awesome.
I found a couple other images there that give some hints as to how to approach that region:
http://www.human-anatomy-for-artist.com/photos/show/id/73545
http://www.human-anatomy-for-artist.com/photos/show/id/72288
http://www.human-anatomy-for-artist.com/photos/show/id/46488
It seems based on those photos (and the one you posted) that my connection point is actually good but that the bicep tapers too quickly under the shoulder, and that it would work better filled it a bit farther down… so not moving the attachment point of the bicep but just filling it in, like so:
What do you think… an appropriate fix?
yes thats exactly what I was trying to get across. It was hard to explain.
So, I hope this fixed the bicep taper issue - and in doing so the arms do look a little bigger, hopefully enough to look “real”…
…I’m getting anxious to try the retopo process… first time for that too. Starting to wonder if putting on fine details isn’t better done AFTER retopo from a workflow efficiency perspective… rather than projecting them onto the retopo’d mesh.
Sean, I was planning on retopo’ing right here in ZBrush by first making a topology plan with polypaint then using the traditional zbrush method using a zsphere and edit topology… if I found it too difficult or awkward I was considering 3D Coat as the alternative, as I understand it’s got really phenominal retopo tools - just want to avoid spending much more money on this I know Blender is open source/freeware, but I’m not sure it’s retopo tools are any better than ZBrush’s - I haven’t heard either way on the issue honestly, only that Blender has a bit of a learning curve in general, and since I already own Lightwave 3D which IMO has a great renderer, I just never figured I’d ever need Blender for anything. In any case, I figure I won’t have any issues with retopologizing in ZBrush, the tuts on it seem simple enough.