mikes stuff...

[artmessiah]

Truly Spectacular work man!!!

[snu]

im really impressed! especially by your texturing.
would you consider making a video or two showing your painting techniques?
that would be a great help for those of us who are texturing-challanged.

[toshiro]

Great sculpts, man! Keep them coming

[michaelw]

Thanks artmessiah, toshiro, will do!

nu, i may do a video tutorial at some point, but all the techniques used are pretty much covered in tarons excellent " elf texture painting" video... stroking along and accross the muscles with a wrinkle brush (effectively cross hatching).... this is a great way to enhance the "edge loops" around the mouth, around the eye sockets.... (don't forget to enable "directional")


, use of noise, pores brush... (positive for pimples, negative for pores.... and then a close spaces "single dot with falloff" used pretty much as you'd use "crease" when sculpting....

something that may not be obvious is that you can fill with the "flatten bump" brush to reduce the bumpmap overall according to the strength setting.... or if you invert the effect (rmb or hold ctrl) then it increases the apparent bump height!

I have quite a few models on the go... will post when they get interesting!

[michaelw]

here's an old "alien" monster I'm re-working (a lot) in sculptris:
a long way to go and it's hard to see what's going on inside the mouth in these screens!
a proper render with shadows and ambient occlusion would help!

no texture paint yet! i'll be a while 'til I get to that!









and here's a girl.... a bit generic at the moment, but it's a a kind of base mesh I guess! (this one from sphere in sculptris.

[graphoced]

what a very very nice thread. I love your work, really.

graphoced

[mazui]

Cool alien!

The girl looks good, but I think the thighs and forearms are too short.

[crispy4004]

That last Alien sculpt is looking quite promising. The girl however could use a little work in terms of her proportions and gesture. It would definitely be worth your time to look more into weight, natural curvature of the human body, and size/length relationships. Many of these issues are consistent with all of your models, which is telling me you may be relying on your mind's eye a little too closely. Anatomy can use some improvement as well, but I wouldn't make that your primary focus at this point. Anatomy inaccuracies are easier to forgive if you nail everything else.

I definitely see how some some of this stuff has escaped you, Sculptris is incredibly easy to build forms, but currently it's a bit challenging to make gestural changes. If I was to attempt sculpting a full human body in Sulptris at this point I would make sure the basic armature was nothing short of perfect before seriously beginning to sculpt. That means a good sense that the character is balancing their weight and well represented counter balances.

Anyways keep things up. I know that may come across a little harsh, but don't take it the wrong way; I'm just a strong believer that flowery critiques don't make better Artists.

[michaelw]

Critique is always more interesting than flat comments...

you got me "bang to rights" on relying on my minds eye... I don't really spend much time with reference...

I don't really consider doing "gesture" in sculptris, as you note it's not good for that! I figure i can fix that later with some extra re-topology, rigging and posing later...

I start with a basic sphere, not an armature... The tools seem good to make radical changes in proportion and length relationships quite easily in my opinion... (you should see some of these as I work on them...true crimes against proportion!

I know exactly which sculpts are the worst offenders when you talk about "balanced weight and counterbalance", but please do expand on size/length relationships in more detail! I'm sure in some cases that's intentional, but certainly not always, so more detail please!

....and crit the anatomy too!

[qwerty]

Alien look alright for me (and I agree shadow would help). As for girl, I tried it myself and i got to admit it's hard. General rule is: usually less is better
-eg deltoid is very slim - bones which are under the skin give it most of shape definition - like here - www.seyvet.com/resim/7c67fb5cf9.jpg - you don't see much of deltoid muscle on her )
- same goes for rib cage - www.fondos-iphone.es/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/carolina_ardohain.jpg - I see mostly 3 ribs and no muscles.
- arms are best sculpt as cylinders imo - no much of separation for bicep and tricep, smooch forearm
- hips should be wide but usually they are not as wide as upper body.
Hope it helps

[bobtronic]

Nice stuff Mike. I like especially the alien. You got already some good pointers about improving the anatomy. Keep us posted.

cheers,
Matthias

[michaelw]

Thanks Qwerty (though I can't see the "deltoid" shot... no "hotlinking allowed...)

Thanks bobtronic. the alien is something I really want to get done! (my older original version falls way short of what i was trying to do! sculptris really seems like the way forward!

I've re-posed the girl and moved the joints a bit... looked better til I moved the head! I would post, but i'm on lunch and am supposed to be doing "real" work....

[michaelw]

Aw, here goes..

thinner hips, re-positioned joints, more balanced pose (no bent knees, weight over balls of feet) rounder arms...

as a result of positioning i needed to re-work pelvis, buttocks etc...

[graphoced]

Your woman is really cool. I don't care if she is correct (I mean real anatomy) but she is a character, she has a unique anatomy and I prefer this kind of character than a really hyper realistic one.
When I see her, I can imagine she has a life, she exists in imagination and she's about to take part of a story and my prefered images are those that tell me a story. Even the first version was nice (the only "wrong" thing was the pubis for me)

regards

graphoced

[michaelw]

thanks graphoced.... the thing about "real anatomy" is that everyone's different really! whilst structure is the same we've all got lumps in different places!

I was in a lecture by bay rait a few years ago and he said that facial anatomy can be radically different... in some people certain muscles go under others whilst in others they go over!