Seriously I can’t wait to see whose this bum belong to.:lol: you have to finish it soon man.;)
I must admit, that is a really nice derriere!
Thanks a lot for a kind words! It was just an experiment, but since people like it I might keep this proportions for future. I think it is nice to use different body types instead of sticking to favorite one.
Speaking about the owner of this bum - it’s a girl whose face I was posting before. I’m trying to recreate not only the face of a real prototype, but also a body. Unfortunately, those references I have don’t really allow to judge the forms of her bum. The only thing I know is that proportionally her hips are quite big in relation to the waist and ribcage. Hence I’m free to experiment with her bum shape.
Hopefully, this will end up as a nice render with full environment. I want to portray her as a Rusalka - the creature from Slavic folklore, a spirit of a drown girl that lives near lakes or swamps. Like a sirens, they are able to hypnotize lone travelers, promising real pleasure, then tickle them to death or simply drown them.
Though I want to show her simply resting on the coast. This would be partially a portrait and partially landscape render.
What might help you is to play with the draw distance relative to the photos your referencing. I use see through mode with zbrush running over top of PS for this. Tweak draw distance (in perspective) a little and match it up to the angled pics, tweak the sculpt where necessary. repeat with straight shots, side shots, ect.
The differences that stand out the most to me are the lips seem much more plump in the photos, more pronounced cheek bones, slightly pronounced jaw and the face doesnt seem as long. Your teeth are probably generic teeth at the moment, but hers look close to perfect. No gaps between any teeth. Its hard to tell with the makeup but her eyes seem more cat-like.
I would reference the black and white fuzzy one with all the freckles (top right) for the lips and nose.
Shes looking good. Your getting really close in my opinion, just small tweaks to make.
Thanks a lot for your comprehensive comment.
I wish there would be more physical camera in Zbrush with realistic units like focal length. This way it would be much easier to match the settings used for references. Despite some improvements in latest versions, Perspective in Zbrush still works a bit odd and (OMG) depends on object’s bounding box.
Since I’m still learning human forms, I’m trying to use my eyes only and train the eyesight. Though occasionally I’m doing quick renders and overlaying them in Photoshop to check how close I am. Probably I should stop pretending to be a hero and use See Through or Spotlight more often
Yes, to be honest I sculpted the lips in a first day and since then I totally forget about them. They should be definitely revisited. As for the jaw - if you look closely at photos you will notice that girl has very pronounced asymmetry of the lower jaw. Her right contour of mandible is much more defined than left one. Before breaking the symmetry in my sculpt I’m trying to keep them as average. Yeah, the teeth age generic one. That’s a good point, I didn’t thought before that teeth might influence the likeness so much. So I’ll check them, as well as other nuances you have mentioned.
Thanks again for a comment
Here is a bit of progress after three days of rest. Still needs a lot of tweaks to look good. And I’m afraid that this type of broad hips doesn’t work very well with narrow body and especially with average legs. Probably I should try more strong thighs. Anyways, since she would be resting on her back the shape of her bum doesn’t really matter.
My previous character was a bit too stylized and idealized. This one would be more realistic and have more imperfections (without glamorous and very soft skin, with some asymmetry even in breasts, more real proportions based upon 7,5 heads etc).
I’m trying to maintain the prototype’s body, but gosh, I never thought it would be so tricky. On pretty mush every photo she has this funny body-art (see pic below) which, however, is really confusing and obscures the anatomy. So basically I’m sculpting average body that is close but not exact to live model, but trying to copy the shape of her breasts more precisely. The major flaws I see now are:
- While proportionally her nipples are at canonical second head level, her tits appear a bit elongated, flattened and sag just a bit. I guess this is because medial part of underboob crease extends too high and connects with quite developed pectoralis major. In my sculpt the breasts are still rough, I should pay more attention to them.
-Also, the connection between the shoulders and torso doesn’t work well. The anterior horizontal curvature of the ribcage is too strong - I should flatten it a bit.
-Abbs are also look odd (IMHO the hardest part in sculpting torso is to make a good interaction between ribs, cartilages and muscle layer on top of it) - Costal arch is too mannish (wide angle).
hey man,these breasts look much more natural.I think you’ve achieved a great result.;)
Thank you very much. Better than breasts in previous character? In Centauride/Freckles I was just following my own vision of perfect boobs. Female breasts might get so many different shapes… for some reason I found previous more attractive to me (perky pointy tits with raised areola and high nipples).
PS As for this character - I hope when I do more tweaks to match the reference, people still would like them. Because in real model they are placed a bit low and people tend to call breasts like this repelling while personally I find the fact of sagging natural and still appealing (100 times better than ballooned hemispherical implants that so many people like small_orange_diamond
)
Hi, it’s me again. Hopefully digging out of my shell of self-criticism soon to post some of my current work (working on my own version of Alice [in the wonderland] character)… but about your latest stuff - amazing progress! I really like the subtle female forms you’ve captured beautifully.
Small improvements for the back though would make it closer to the heaven:
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7th cervical vertebrae could be protruding just a tiny bit more and the bony landmark is vertically slightly longer as well. Not much, but careful sculpting will help. And as a rule of thumb any other cervical vertebraes DON’T create any surface frorms. In your case it looks like you’re having 6th and 7th cervical vertebraes, and 1st thoracic vertebrae visible. 7th being the correct one in the center. BUT, there are cases were you can see 1st and 2nd thoracic vertrebraes, depending on the person. But let’s just say that you’d need to fix 7th cervical vertebrae only, you’ll also need a slight diamond indentation around that vertebrae, which is formed by the trapezius muscle, where its muscle fibers end and turn into common tendoness sheet. But even the shape of the diamond indentation is very subtle on female, and I believe that you can handle all this.
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Erector spinea muscle(s) are more or less missing. You have that nice and deep furrow of the lumbar vertebrae, but she could have a bit more defined erector spinae muscle “bars” coming vertically from above her butt. Just above those two “sausages”, are secondary form of the same spinae muscles, slightly offsetting laterally from the primary forms. Made a quick (and bad, haha) reference pic for you:
http://i.imgur.com/wpUDyBc.jpg
I didn’t overpaint the female on the left, just so you can use it as a better reference. The pic on the right is just an extreme example to emphasize those muscles. The dashed line is just representing the separation between the tail of the trapezius and the secondary form of the erector spinae going under the trapezius. In that pick they’re more like fused together. Well, it’s just too extreme I guess. And as you can see, that females also have those same forms, but very smooth ones.
And I agree about the complexity of the costal arch of the cartilage and surrounding muscles, just because it has so many overlapping forms from rectus abdominis and external oblique along with the ribcage, depending on the development of those muscles AND/OR which of those muscles are in action when doing poses. But, generally ribs are dominant on females, and there might be some visible digitations on between serratus anterior and external oblique muscles on top of the ribcage. I can see that you have some of those, but I need to study more of their correct positions on ribs, so that I can visualize them better… I think the hardest area in the anatomy is the scapular region, so that’s something I need to study harder than other areas. So I think you made that area to look good, to the detriment of the female forms. :D:D
Well, I’m still learning as all we are when it comes to anatomy. It’s a neverending study. But for now I can’t see anything else that bugs me badly, so I hope that I was helpful with the knowledge I have. (;
While I agree somewhat with your observations about the back muscle groups this is after all a female that’s not a bodybuilder so those muscles are not going to be pronounced in a casual pose like that. I used to body build and hell my back wasn’t as defined in the lower regions as I might have liked. We are all built differently with our strengths and weaknesses. Some skinny, some fat, some very muscular, some sinewy and all that…
Really nice work on the female form. I think you have some nice things going on here, nice mass on the buttocks, and Fat flanks around the Greater Trochanter, breast look natural. There will be some differences in some bony land marks, muscle, and fat which gives us the final superficial forms, but from observation here are a few things that are good to keep in mind, some have already been mentioned. Id like to see a side profile too as this tells me allot about the planes and masses of the back.
1: The 7th Cervical Vertebrae is a prominent land mark so if your going to include the 1st, 2nd Thoracic Vertebrae as well, then make sure the 7th is more prominent. Also from the side profile (Not present) the 7th Cervical Vertebrae should not line up with the pit of the neck. On average the 7th is found 1 & 1/3 of a head down, there should be a nice angle from the 7th to the pit of neck, the pit of the neck can be as much as 1/2 a head from the chin down. There is no muscle from the Trapezius around the 7th cervical Vertebrae, only Tendon, this form a diamond like fossa/depression around the 7th, if only slightly, add it if you want, but its hardly seen on average people, but these are be areas which shows your own artistic expression, even if you smooth 98% out, the light will catch it slightly. The key is not always to add more emphasis however, but take away from some areas that leaves more presents of what should be more superficial.
2: The Trapezius seems to have a little too much volume down the Medial border of the Scapula, see this area as more of a plane change from Medial border of the scapula to the spine. Again what can make this look that way is lack of volume else where.
3: It looks as if the Rhomboids have too much dominance, this again could well be to getting the right balance between the Mass of the Trapezius Inferior portion to its Medial portion, just something to look at.
4: Nice Fat flank around the Pelvic area, however the crease from the flanks of the lumbar area (Above the pelvis) shows to be Horizontal, this normally goes up the back higher and a angle, and helps with the beautiful form of the female back.
5: The Erector spinae does have two portions the Medial, and Lateral. The Medial can be emphasised using the clay build up brush which leaves slight striations when smoothed, you can add a couple of the spines in the Lumbar area, if only slight. Add a little more mass for the lateral Erector spinae, use this as a space filler, rather than using it for high definition. The depression between the spine on the female does not go down as far as you have for females, this is due to the extra fat over the Sacrum. The male shows to have the Sacrum Triangle, where as the female is more of a diamond. This is given the name Rhombus of Michaelis, look it up, interesting stuff.
6: Her very visible Serratus muscle should be much less visible, try to balance this out with the intersecting volume of the Thoracic region of the External Obliques. Use your Clay build up brush to make some strokes that come vertically down the back, wrap around her waist, over the PSIS, this gives nice rhythm to her forms. Hope you dont mind me doing a draw over, it helps more I think.
Thanks Danny.
Attachments
Thank you guys a lot for commenting and suggestions.
FourtyNights
Hi, nice to see you here :). Yeah, I also suffer a lot from self-criticism so I understand you. Coming back to your suggestions.
- Those bumps for vertebrae are really loose right now - just three brush strokes per spinal process. I will retouch them next time. As for the Trapezius - yeah, I know what you mean about this several tendinous forms along the spinal processes and scapular spine. To be honest I didn’t even sculpt trapezius in this model. Here I only suggested the volumes for the Rhomboids. I’m a bit rushing right now since I got more stuff to do for this project. Her back wouldn’t be seen so I’m keeping it loose. But I hope to try all this suggestions if I would have more free time.
- I was messing a lot with Erector Spinae. For some reason it is quite hard for me to sculpt this muscle. According to Goldfinger the lateral form is responsible for back thorax contour (from a side view) and the medial (along with Multifidus) for transitional line between thorax and buttox. So I always have this forms in mind while establishing side profile. I just softened the lateral form in the end since I thought it will make her look too muscular.
And I agree that scapula and its muscles is also very complex area. Even when you know all the muscles and functions it is still very hard to make it look natural. The main reason is probably the subtlety of female forms. In muscular males, where everything is much more defined, this region doesn’t look so hard to sculpt (at least for me)
BTW where did you get this reference of female back? It looks very lovely
Thank you all again and I hope to post more updates soon. A lot of stuff should be fixed. Especially arms and legs - they don’t really look very natural right now. And also the breasts. I still have to wrap my head around the fact and understand why some boobs appear a bit saggy and elongated while proportionally the nipples are at canonical 2 head mark.
I see a lot of progress here. A lot of realism. There is still work to do, but I can see how you expand your horizons. Bravo! ;)
Thanks a lot for a kind words and your support. It means a lot for me. I hope that you and other people will like the final result
Hello my dear friends! Finally found some time to polish her more. Happy to say the project is still alive. Before introducing this changes I also worked a lot on making the environment for the final render. And oh, that’s a lot of stuff is going on behind the scenes so don’t think I’m fulling around all this time
So I finally added arms and hands. Forearms are looking a bit too long though. Plus they need more love and polishing. I always have troubles when sculpting wrist flexors in pronated position. Tried also to implement changes suggested by several users above. Thank you guys! I already had some skin striation at her back so to refine her back I was forced to smooth everything. Also I did it without symmetry on, so the left Serratus anterior is bulging more under the Latissimus dorsi compare to the right side. Will fix it tomorrow.
Usually I just sculpt my own hands since they are quite delicate and fit nicely to female characters. This time I used another reference. Mainly because she needs specific hands with prominent features (she is a devilish spirit after all), but also to add some variety.
I worked at her face as well. Still not satisfied with the result. I think I would try break the symmetry next since her face is quite asymmetrical. And maybe make her cheek-bones slightly prominent. And add some stray hair cause now the hair line looks weird. Any advices would be really helpful.
This is the last WIP image of this character I upload here. Just don’t want to annoy you with numerous iterations. Next time I will post a finished figure or maybe even posed.
Cheers!
now you can look at her & say: hey,this looks natural. you did a great job buddy.keep it up.;)
Thanks a lot for your kind words, Diablo :). I Hope you would like the colored and posed version as well.
Great stuff. I love the face of this girl, looks beautiful
Thanks, I’m glad that you like it. Too sad that likeness is still not here.
She is very beautiful. Especially her eyes and lips, and the anatomical details on the body.