Second Anatomy Study

I forgot to get screenshots of the early stage process of this sculpt so here it is dropped down to sub division level 1. This time I wanted to go for a larger more stronger looking character than my previous one, and also wanted to attempt open eyes properly. I spent a lot longer on this sculpt that I did on the first one, as I wanted to push myself to achieve something I can be proud of. For this reason, I spent a good few hours on the lower subdivision levels before even considering dividing at all to make sure that the features of the face are valid and accurate to human proportions.

This was where I was at with the 3rd subdivision of the sculpt, the face felt too stretched and disproportionate and almost caused me to abandon the study and start again.
The top of the sculpt here worked well however, as the structure of the skull felt natural, which encouraged me to continue just to see what I could make from what I had. This led to a lot of time adjusting certain elements of the character's face in order to reach something I was happy with.

Her I am still on the same subdivision level a day later still experimenting and playing with the character's proportions to create something I think could be believable. It was around this time I noticed that I had left the cheekbones a bit too unrealistically high up and sharp and so began to lower them and make them appear more fleshy and covered rather than looking like  they were pushing out from under the skin and had nothing above them.

By the third subdivision, I was happy with how the character was coming together and spent the time on this subdivision refining the features such as the nose, ears and eyes with detail that I couldn't include in the lower levels. Here I started to really define the nose and brow features to bring the detail forward and allow me to construct an accurate representation of a human face, Once I had those two features in a good place, the eyes seems to fall together on their own, and I had little sculpting to do to create them.

The fourth division allowed me to bring the sculpt closer to realism by allowing me to place in key features surrounding the eyes, nose and mouth, allowing me to present the ageing and wear of the character for me to follow the creases of his face. I also moved the location of the mouth slightly to once again get closer to realism. I also moved the ears up slightly so that the top sat parallel to the centre of the eyes, and the lobe sat close to the tip of the nose. Initially I was worried that I had placed the wrinkles in a little too early, however as they were the major marks such as the crows feet and the forehead lines, it in fact aided me in determining areas such as the eyelids and orientation of the brow bones.

Subdivison five I used for finer wrinkles around the eyes and brows, some subtle moles, and some small scars, while subdivison six I used for some skin surface pores and stretching studies. I also began playing with the lighting in ZBrush to achieve a higher quality render to use, hence the lighting coming from the left rather than the right. This allowed me to exhibit the detail on the pores and smaller scars.

Here is the finished study with brows and better lighting included. and the brows in place. I also moved the eyes forward slightly and altered the nose and mouth as I felt both were a little too large.

The profile shot of the character reveals the skin damaged I chose the include to give the sculpt more personality behind it with imperfections.

Fibremesh rendered using the best preview render works well with this character as it adds to the rugged and aged look I was aiming to achieve. This time however, rather than breaking down the facial hair into separate areas, I added it all as one piece, as it was all one length and was simply stubble.

Playing around with the idea of a large defining scar and the sort of affect that could carry on facial hair.

Anatomy Study

 After receiving some extremely useful feedback from our tutor James, and a one on one call about how to approach anatomy and realism, I have begun to properly study the anatomy of the face. During the call, James recommended a book named Anatomy For Sculptors, which contains so much useful information about facial features and a breakdown of specific muscles that are visible through the skin, and how to properly structure each feature of the face. After finding a free copy of the book online as a PDF file, I have been reading through and sculpting as I go.

Right from the get go, the sculpt started off stronger and more life like than anything I've sculpted previously as proper anatomical structure is in place, allowing the sculpt to look more human. For this initial study, I chose to keep the eyes closed so that I could focus more on the larger more prominent features of the skull and face. The sternocleidomastoid muscle (the large muscle going from behind the ear to the clavicle on the front on the bust) is an essential part of a bust as it holds the head sturdily in place and allows for the turning of the head. Once this is in place the bust really begins to take form.

Another important muscle to add is the node muscle at the corner of the mouth. Anatomy wise every muscle to do with the face can link back to the node muscle, allowing for the sculptor to accurately place muscles and facial creases on their bust.

As difficult as it initially was, James recommended that keeping low sub divisions for the initial features to take shape was the best course of action. After an hour or so however it made a lot more sense to me, and I had been doing everything I possibly could on that sub division level before moving up to the next one. 
I also found that once I had moved up to the next sub division, it helped immensely to drop back down every now and again to make sure the basic forms of the skull were still correct, and if not I could change it without distorting any detail. The way James described this was imagine that you're looking at the sculpt through a really out of focus camera, and each sub division you're focusing it in a little bit more, meaning that sub division one should be just the hard structure of the head itself.

While at this division level, I had been using the move tool and the clay buildup to simply block in the underlying skull of the head, and the standard tool to hollow out the eye sockets ready to place in the lids. Division one had a simple bulged line where the mouth should be, as it is impossible to differentiate lips at this stage, but useful to have a placeholder set for when you reach an appropriate level.

the third sub division is where you really start to see the face taking shape, as everything is following the underlying structure from the previous levels. In this SD, we can start to bring more details forward in places where we couldn't on previous levels, for example the eyes, nose and mouth area can all have a better structure added to give the face a cleaner look. At this division it is still too low to add major details, so an ear would only be a basic block out ready for detailing later on. Shaping the lips correctly is a lot easier in this division level as there are more polygons to work with, but not enough to add the finer details. The nose can also be chiseled out more at this stage, making sure to once again not add too much unnecessary detail.

I spent a very long time in sub level four tweaking and changing the proportions of the face until I reached something I was happy to keep. I squared out the jaw slightly whilst making sure it only came out to an anatomically correct distance. I also lowered the brow of the bust and carved the mouth out more, the ears were also a high enough level to add more detail and structure at this point, which I also re shaped and moved slightly. I was once again flipping back to previous levels to check everything worked and to make subtle changes to the structure that allowed me to continue higher up. It is a good idea to constantly be checking every angle of the bust to make sure it doesn't look completely alien from one perspective and normal from the other. 

I have spent even longer in sub division five, adding to the details that have been produced in the previous levels. I have also rounded off the brow bone to give a more natural structure to the face, and added finer detail and sculpting to any area available. All of the detail I am adding I am taking from the Anatomy For Sculptors PDF which I have had open on my second screen for the entirety of this sculpt so far. I have found this division level extremely difficult to not get carried away in finer details as the bust is really starting to take form as a proper person in this level.
I have also made the creases going from the sides of the nose more subtle as I felt they were extremely harsh on previous divisions. I have also found that moving the light around slightly can help make sure the details aren't too sharp or deep on the bust.

In divisions six and seven I have been adding a higher level of detail to the sculpt such as wrinkles, eyebrows and moles. I have also broken the symmetry to give the character a more realistic feel to him and to make him appear less sculpted. I have also dropped down a few levels and re-shaped the jawline to ensure that the proportions are closer to real life, with the upper cheek bone being the widest part of the skull. 
I feel as though this has been a successful initial study and plan to continue doing these until I have nailed anatomically proportionate lifelike heads in order to aid me in creating stylised realism characters further down the line.

Here I have been experimenting with Fibremesh for facial hair, I have found that making a good looking beard is easiest to do if you break down the parts of the beard to chin, cheeks, and moustache. I also had a separate set of hairs for the shorter hairs growing higher up the cheek as its easier to separate the lengths piece by piece rather than all at once.

When Realism Get Stylised

 As with all art forms, stylistic models and characters are made using reference, be it modeling straight from reference or modeling from a piece of concept art, everything starts with a reference from something that exists. Characters in this principal are often very exciting, as quite often they come from some reference of a real person.

For example in the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Obi Wan Kenobi's character was created based off of Ewan McGregor's portrayal.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Obi Wan Kenobi

Star Wars: Episode 3 - Obi Wan Kenobi

With the comparison above it is clearly noticeable how much reference the character designers took from the real life counterpart. With the stylistic render of the Clone Wars version, Obi Wan has sharper more triangular features with the nose, brow and beard being more angular. 

Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Anakin Skywalker

Star Wars: Episode 3 - Anakin Skywalker

In this comparison, Anakin's face has also been styled extremely close to the likeness of the real actor, Hayden Christensen, yet with a sharper jawline, and more obvious chin mark.

Ragnar Lothbrok

 Following the research and suggestions that I have been given from character artists in the industry, I decided to try my hand at a realism sculpt. The person I chose to create was Ragnar Lothbrok from the show Vikings.

I decided the most interesting appearance to choose would be Ragnar's final days, as he has the most wrinkles, scars and longest beard. I used front and side profiles of both young and old Ragnar and also of a beardless picture of the actor, Travis Fimmel. 
Once I had Fimmel's face as close as I could get, I then began to turn it into Ragnar with the addition of scars and aging. 

The initial blocking in was very difficult as I've never attempted to recreate another living person (or rather one portrayed by a living person) before. The block in face almost had me abandon the project as I felt that I wouldn't be able to pull this together and get it even remotely similar without at least weeks of working on it. One thing I found when making Fimmel's face, was the eyes and nose were particularly hard to get right, as well as the positioning of the ears, which I had to move and resize a bunch of times to get right.

Finally I had come to an agreeable look for the character, and added a few finer details. When I was creating the character it struck me that adding some asymmetry to the eyes and nose really brought the look closer to what I wanted. Without the beard on, the sculpt is as close as I could get to Travis Fimmel's clean shaven image mixed with the bald head, and aged look of Ragnar Lothbrok.

 

With the beard added using fibremesh, I feel like I have successfully created a close representation of Ragnar Lothbrok. As this is my first realism sculpt there is obviously room for improvement, which I shall continue to work on with another sculpt further down the line. In comparison to working with stylisation, I found this fun, yet challenging as I didn't have as much freedom to give the character interesting or exaggerated features, and had to follow the already set look of the character. 

I once again added some painting in ZBrush to add a little more life to the sculpt, however I feel I need more practice on painting for realism in order to get the look that I wanted to achieve. Overall I am happy with the finished look of Ragnar, but will continue to develop my realism further with more sculpts. I plan to try another character from the show next, Floki.

Hero Forge: A Character Designer's Dream

 Hero Forge is a free online miniature character creator with the main focus being on characters for the popular role playing rpg Dungeons and Dragons. However, as someone who loves to create unique looking characters, I spend a lot of time messing around with the customisation options, and even look at certain details they have done with hair styles and such for when I'm sculpting these things for myself. 

The site opens up to either a male of female human as default in order to give the user a 'blank slate' to create a character from. Each customisable item in Hero Forge is sculpted in ZBrush which makes me enjoy it even more, as I can visualise the brush strokes of some of the items you can use. The visuals of Hero Forge are very unique as they give off a sort of clay sculpted finish, and holds a sort of soft and friendly appearance to even the meanest of characters.

Even with colour, the minatures still retain a clay sculpture like appearance, as the materials available to use all have a very unique hand painted look and feel to them, which again is something I am passionate about, as hand painted stylised characters and models are something that I enjoy both visually and when creating them myself.

An Odd Project

 Over the christmas and new years break, my family and I got a new puppy; Daisy. Due to her colourings and breed we always joke that she looks sort of like some fried chicken, and so I thought i'd try and capture that in a sculpt as a bit of a fun creative practice, as well as an experiment to see if I could create more than just characters.

Initially, I was happy with how the final sculpt turned out, with it being another stylised realism look, yet leaning more towards the stylistic side of things. I was happy with how she appeared as fried chicken too, as the curly fur she has complimented the idea of batter.

After the painting however, it was clear that the fur looked off, and more like some kind of lumpy fudge rather than fur itself. Overall however though, I am happy with this experiment as I have found enjoyment in creating something unique and interesting rather than a simple character's face.