haha…in that case I think you did it in the best way it could be:lol: and thank you so much for checking out my work.I appreciate it a lot.;)
Your pose inspired me to try a figure study with a similar pose. Here’s what I got so far (I don’t want to insert my image into your thread):
http://www.th0r.com/vir-norin-figure-study/
You’re right… it’s pretty tricky- asymmetrical sculpting with a difficult pose = lots of problems. 
Notice I stuck with YOUR preferred body type, not mine. 
Hey man, sorry for the late reply XD Anyway, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. I think that with your skills you can go for something like Eof, but since you’re stuck with the base mesh you’re not experimenting the anatomy and I can always see the simple shapes of the lowpoly…as you said you lack some natural harmony in your works and the only way to get better at it is to practice without the limits of the lowpoly. Don’t be scared about dynamesh, if your pc is running slow it just means you’re using too many polys but you don’t need too many to make some quick anatomy/head studies.
The parts where your characters lose realism are the eyelids, the mouth, ears, hands, feet(especially fingers) and general joints…and those parts are really important since whatever you can say about it they are the parts that will really sell your character.
If your pc doesn’t support an entire body or bust with dynamesh just work on a sphere and sculpt some eyes mouths ears etc, use references and do use references from other artists that you like like Eof, maybe Hazardous and so on, start with a copy of their styles for mouths and then try to understand how to integrate that realistic and alive feel in your works.
You can even use real clay for the studies 
For the free time I feel your pain my friend…I have so little time right now, working freelance that I have to sleep less to work on the riot contest…lol
So yeah! It’s up to you what to do, you’re investing hours in it and you have to decide if it’s worth it. Still if you don’t find anything in your country you can search abroad or freelance, a lot of us do that 
Dantert
I cannot say that I get your point for sure. I mean, if I have a nice, but rather simple base-mesh for a character in the beginning, I still can experiment and even change my style going from realistic characters to very stylized. Cause, for example, if the topology for my limbs are pretty much modified cylinders, I can freely change their size and volumes without any problems. The difficulties might occur if I have very specific topology-flow that might restrain the freedom of sculpting. But I’m creating this type of topology only in the end when doing retopo. When I said about experimenting I meant a different thing. Like for example if I start doing creature but have no idea about its final look. In this case starting from base-mesh might be not a best solution since initial geometry will restrain me from making drastic changes like adding horns, wings or even another pair of limbs. For stuff like this Dynamesh is a great solution, allowing very quick process. But in case of human models I believe the base-mesh workflow is fine.
I can agree that if someone always starts his characters from one and the same base-mesh, there are chances he will end-up with very similar results. To avoid this problem I prefer to start my sculpts with very primitive and rough meshes. Even more, when I’m doing only female heads, I intentionally chose a male’s head base-mesh to ensure that every feature would be touched and not left as is. Cause If I start from already established female’s head, the process would be rather called “morphing”, not “sculpting”.
OK, I will look at this problem areas you have mentioned and try to improve them in my next works or even in this one. Cause obviously it is still a WIP and after posting this comment I’m actually going to revisit her feet (they remain unchanged after the posing and too smooth right now). Hands are also a real headache to me.
Hazardous, mentioned by you, is also awesome. I’m already use his sculpts as a source of inspiration, and as i said previously I’m going to try myself in stylized characters, so I will pay even more attention to his workflow, style and other nuances in his models, making them so appealing.
Working with real clay is quite problematic for me right now. But I’m planning to start traditional or digital drawing. I believe it also would be really helpful… and just fun.
yeah, looks like freelance is the only solution right now. As well as selling models on sites like Turbosquid etc.
Thanks again for your comprehensive reply
Thor
Great! You did it so quickly? Did you start it from scratch or maybe used already existed model? Looks very close. The only notice: her right hand is supposed to be grounded. In my sculpt it is still floating several inches above cause I didn’t find a compromise between factors like overall arm’s flexion, gesture and rhythm, amount of right breast squashing and visibility of the navel from final camera angle (for me having navel exposed is very important). I’ll resolve the issue by placing one thing below the hand (don’t want to spoil the story and what exactly it would be 
)
PS Just curious, what body-type is your favorite :)?
Diablo
Yeah, there is something special in this forms for me :rolleyes:
You are welcome. And awaiting for more stuff from you.
Did some fixes to hands and feet. And I was unable to resist and started detailing. Though still not satisfied with general shape of hands. The fingers of her right hand are too straight and lack a gesture, there is no feel of bearing the weight. And looks like the left wrist is too short (result of deformation after the posing). Overall wrinkles appear to crisp, but I believe that with SSS shader everything would be OK. In the end I always can soften them manually.
I hope that overall it looks a bit better now
Thor
Great! You did it so quickly? Did you start it from scratch or maybe used already existed model? Looks very close.
From scratch?!? Haha… No way I could recreate that pose so quickly from scratch. 
Lo poly basemesh (I like to use MakeHuman for this) -> pose -> Dynamesh
For figure/anatomy studies, I don’t care about topo… just dynamesh and sculpt.
The only notice: her right hand is supposed to be grounded. In my sculpt it is still floating several inches above cause I didn’t find a compromise between factors like overall arm’s flexion, gesture and rhythm, amount of right breast squashing and visibility of the navel from final camera angle (for me having navel exposed is very important). I’ll resolve the issue by placing one thing below the hand (don’t want to spoil the story and what exactly it would be
Yes, I noticed the right hand and saw your earlier post about having the navel visible. As you say, there’s a lot going on. I messed around with it for a while, but I didn’t like what the torso was doing when I brought the hand down - so I left it up. This was close enough for my study/practice.
PS Just curious, what body-type is your favorite :)?
Go back and reload the page:
http://www.th0r.com/vir-norin-figure-study/
Wow. those feet and hands!
Yes, I noticed the right hand and saw your earlier post about having the navel visible. As you say, there’s a lot going on. I messed around with it for a while, but I didn’t like what the torso was doing when I brought the hand down - so I left it up. This was close enough for my study/practice.
Yeah, when a pose contains complex interaction of forms, it is very hard to find a best position for every part of the body. The simple action in real life like lowering the hand turns into a real puzzle when doing it in 3D. Cause often it produces a chain reaction, forcing a sculptor to rework many other areas.
Go back and reload the page
So you prefer a bit more chubby girls with gorgeous forms :). English isn’t my native language, so I hope that “chubby” is appropriate term in this case
Wow. those feet and hands!
Thank you very much This parts are always tricky to me, so it is nice to hear that I’m improving.
Experimenting with lighting in Cycles. Also did a rough environment. Originally I wanted to make the floor and her lower body illuminated by a straight sun rays, causing harsh shadows and interesting pattern due to the jalousie, but keep the shading on her face and shoulders very soft by scattering the light though the blinds. Unfortunately, due to several engine limitations and my weak PC I’m unable to achieve this result :(.
The model still isn’t finished yet. Plus it is just a third subdivision level for performance sake. Shader is just a mix of diffuse (not even SSS) with glossy materials. Only color texture is applied which is not finished yet.
Have no motivation to continue with it though. Will wait for a better mood and sculpt something else instead… maybe a dragon or another cool creature.
Sorry for a bald head. I’m OK with bald girls and even like them, but recently I discovered that many guys found repelling girls without a hair. That was unexpected.
Pretty good job here!
If you are going for correct anatomy then there are lots of little tweaks you may need to do. I’m not a master of anatomy but some things just don’t visually click. If you are NOT going for physical accuracy then, hey, you are done!
In regards to bald women (I’m assuming you are referring to head hair) then, yes, I think it can look odd. However, there have been some very few women that can surprisingly pull it off. I think that it might have something to do with with the face/hair relationship and if that woman was seen with hair before or not.
Keep up the good work.
Cheers,
Paul
(mix_mash)
Thanks. I honestly tried to finish this project before starting a new one, but now I feel that I completely lost my interest. I messed up with a pose right in the beginning, thought maybe it is not obvious from this angle. Plus initially it was supposed to look much different than what I have now. So I think it is not worth to waste my time doing fixes in sculpt that I don’t really like.
Regardless, thanks for commenting and critique.
Following Dantert’s advise. Simple daily practice of the head
Like those head sculpts.
looking nice already.;)
Thank you, guys!
This is just a simple doodle, but I hope that one day I’ll find a good usage for it
FANTASTIC,CONGRATULATIONS
Thanks a lot
I’m happy you like it.
I was using particular person for the last male head study. here I made it more close to the actual prototype. It is still far from likeness, but I cannot waste my time on it right now since I started a new big project, where I would also practice my likeness skills.
So here is one day of progress. Plus today I spent some hours fixing eyes. I found truly beautiful model and really want to achieve a good likeness. The problem is: there are not so many good references of her plus all of them are frontal shots. I don’t have a side view at all. And only few three-quarter shots. So it is quite difficult task I should say. The region below the eyes and to the side from nose is still very vague. Mainly because all reference photo were shot with very soft glamour lighting killing all the details up to infraorbital or nasolabial folds. But I don’t give up 
good work, patience and on, slowly, without haste: D;)
Thank you my friend I have a big plans for this girl. I want to show her as a mythical creature from Ukrainian folklore. All the details of future render are already planned, so yeah - just patiently moving towards the final and nice (I hope) result