Hey guys, thanks for the awesome feedbacks, definitely goes where it needs.
Mr. BananaS : I agree with you on some stuff you said, don’t worry no offense taken;). You are right in the way that i could work over and over again each part of the body and challenge me to do a posed one then. I even tried, but my brain need entertainment for me to plow countless hours into anatomy.
Though you think this is a waste of time, i think otherwise. On other project, i am now able to assess faster and way better where my mistakes are and what i should correct, but it immensely helped me psychologicaly whise, where before i would really doubt on how to approach sculptures, how should i do this or that, and showing these works to the outside world.
I know most of them are anatomically off here and there, but each sculpture purpose is nothing. The whole is important. From day 1 to day 39 (i think 40 sucks…) there is improvement, in my opinion. The other thing is is that they are sculpted posed and without symmetry ('cept for face, hands and feets because they always take such time that i can concentrate on the rest of the body) which forces me to do both side each time.
The thing is, these posed char are not meant to be perfect nor the best sculpt even. It is true i just kinda threw those pictures without much of an explanation, my bad. After much of work these past year, making char (ie highres sculpt, retopo, baking, texture ect) i felt highly displeased with what i could do as base. Given enough time yeah, i can correct most of my anatomical mistakes, make it better overall and close to something good.
but it took time and reviews, from me and from other. In a way i couldn’t see what was wrong, part is from working too much on a single piece and the other because of a blatant lack of anatomical knowledge.
When i started this challenge, i chose to copy real statue for various reasons : These are works of masters, and while some are anatomically, again, off, they are thought out works, carved with the knowledge of years inside them. Furthermore, it’s way easier to find different angle of a statue than a photo and I think some of the materials used reflect light better than flesh so it is easier to see forms.
But that is only the first part, the appetizer. This helped me gain confidence in me, in what i could achieve and made me start on the second part : photos
With that i decided that i would find poses online and recreate them. Easier said than done. But in the process, i found something even more entertaining to do, which makes my sculpt progress way slower but makes me think a lot more. I would find a suitable pose online, pose my char and close the photo. then i would start sculpting, think on how the body works, which muscle stretch or not, what is their purpose.
Moreover, i like to pose them and sculpt them pose because it gives the sculpture a backstory, something else that makes em more real…at least that’s what i like to think.
Sorry for the big chunk of text, so a tl;dr. This exercice is something that works -for me-. It is not aimed to find a better way to learn anatomy, it’s just my personal way of learning. Posing them, sculpting them and imagining where they are coming from is entertaining, which makes the whole process of learning anatomy enjoyable. If I didn’t find any fun in that exercice, i would have abandonned it a long while ago. And i do study anatomy, have books, draw. I am just finding a learning path that works for me.
Because in the end, it’s all about the journey.
