3d sculpts from mudbox

[cowsmanaut]

It is my hope to sit down and force myself to do some sculpts each week and I'll try to post them here

this is one I assigned a project to my VFX students to do a alien head sculpt, they could make up any alien they wanted and I decided to do one myself to provide more information about the process.. I went for a more traditional alien, they greys, but I made this one female.. the blue in the eyes is just the colour of the masking tool in mudbox, there are no textures on the skin itself either, just a basic shader

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v291/ ... /alien.jpg

[cowsmanaut]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v291/ ... t/thug.jpg

possible orc thug.. will play with the features more and perhaps put some items on him. he's still missing feet and the arms are incompleted.. bla bla bla.. but it's a start

[Gambit37]

These are very cool How do you start? I tried to get to grips with Sculptris, but all I created was crappy blobs....

[L_ghthouse]

Great job on the muscle definition! I wish I was any good at 3D modeling... my best work in my one college class produced a shark that I swear looked more like a submarine with teeth painted on it.

[cowsmanaut]

Well, the general idea is to have copius amounts of reference near by. We can't be expected to memorize every muscle and feature in the body, or to come up with every element out of thin air.. we need other things to draw from.. even if it's borrowing a little from her and a little from there..

I generally start from a base mesh which I've put together, though the alien was from the mudbox base head, I have several low poly heads I've made in maya which are not terribly detailed.. just a general head shape. though even at that stage I use reference. then I take the mesh, as I did for the body of the orc thug there.. into mudbox or zbrush and I go to town just adding subdivisions and sculpting. usually you can see with your broad strokes if the leg is too thin or the head too big etc.. just get general proportions down, let your imagination fill in the rest at the start, then as you go up in subdivisions so too does your details, as you dive into adding forms from muscle references looking where the hills and valleys exist.. it's all a matter of shape and distances.. how far is the knee from the hips.. how far is the folds in the knee from the top of the knee.. etc.. smaller and smaller distances..

[Bit]

There's an interesting video Gambit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwgGAcd0 ... re=related

[cowsmanaut]

kind of like this.. this one is in sculptris since that's what you're using.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vukZb28LGnk

like any artistic pursuit, frequency in your efforts lead to faster improvements. Try breaking it down to simple goals.. take an object and try to sculpt an ear, nose, eye, or mouth onto it.. just one of those. so you can focus on making it good. make them over and over, try different noses or ears or eyes ... just to get used to the tools and to making those body parts.

mouth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VdA6LP3CG4

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread ... post348338

noses
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread ... dio-Wall-I

[Gambit37]

I think the learning point here is this: I really need to start drawing again. I haven't studied human anatomy for twenty years, and haven't drawn anything for the same amount of time! It's all digital design for me these days, and if I want to get back into art (digital or otherwise), I'm gonna have to pick me up some pencils

[cowsmanaut]

it's all inter-linked. If you sculpt it affects your drawing skills, and thus painting skills in photoshop, as well as design.. they are sort of intermingle as you practice one, it trains your eye to be better which will prove to be an improvement in the others.. So to be a better artist, playing with anything artistic is usually helpful.. however, you are correct in that the study of anatomy is important to the artist who wants to recreate that, but such is the case of any artistic endeavor.. your first step is reference.

I think you'll find just by following my suggestion, you'll see yourself improve.. just take a few photos of noses and sculpt away on a plane or sphere.. etc.

[cowsmanaut]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFsL4YDw ... re=mh_lolz

if you wanted to know how to paint realistic skin.. there you are... hand painted in mudbox..