Female character anatomy practice

Recently finished a female sculpt. 

I'd like some critique on some areas that I need some improvements.

  • Rita G replied

    The elbows always meet waistline. Here. This female's elbows are below waist.  

  • tobles replied

    Hi,

    overall I think it's a good sculpt. I like the abdomen area, the proportions there are nicely done and it gives a good silhouette shape.
    In my opinion the fingers are to slim. I'd say they need a little more mass in diameter. The toes are a little off too I guess.

    Greetings,
    tobles

  • Ingrid Frank(Fide) replied

    Hey there,

    I think you did a good job in general. Nice work on the muscles and overall smooth looking sculpt.

    The body itself  reads a bit too masculine for me.  The shoulders are too broad, they usually line up with the widest part of the thighs. The hip you sculpted is that of a male. Female hips are broader and not so high in comparisson.

    Just take a look at some female body references and you are good to go! 




  • silentheart00 replied

    Hello,

    I think this is a good step in learning anatomy, but definitely some areas to improve.  What I have can feel like there's a lot to improve upon, so if it takes time to process it all, that is okay.  It's perfectly alright to focus on sections of anatomy as well, such as the arm, hand, etc. and then try to pull it all together.  So, here's me drawing over your images with notes:

    So, something to explore is learning the muscle groups.  You can go as deep as the deepest layer if you want, but the surface muscles will suffice.  My personal favorite for referencing muscle groups is zygotebody.com, not sure if you're familiar with it or not.  It's a 3D model of the body and you can isolate certain areas of the body, such as the muscles or nerves of a body.  Pretty helpful.

    Something to try would be to separate out the muscle groups into their own meshes.  So, for example, you could have the bicep, branchialis, and tricep as separate meshes to help you see the volume of the muscle and how that fits into the others.  Plus, it's easy to adjust.  You don't have to go that granular if you don't want to; you could also just have the upper arm and deltoid as separate meshes.

    Having the person be 7 heads high is accurate to the average human, but you tend to see 7.5-8 heads favored more as it's more pleasing to the eye.  This can be a bit subjective, though.

    If you're angling the limbs out, it helps me to have a reference of the arm straight at the side and then rotate it out at the pivot point.  Since things should be lined up when the arm is straight, just rotating it should keep the proper proportions.  Similar idea with the legs.

    The original sculpt feels like the person is leaning forward, so you can bring the knee and below forward.  The center of mass on the person feels very forward.

    On a more CG-focused note, if you're planning on retopologizing this and fully rigging it, it's a lot easier to rig if the legs are straight.  They're a bit angled in the sculpt.  The arms and fingers are also easier to rig when straight, but it's okay if the arms are more relaxed like an A, it'll just be more challenging to rig.

    Lastly, you are your best reference.  If you want different references than yourself, the internet has plenty.  Or, ask a friend if they're willing to help you out.  There are also plenty of anatomy books to pick up if you wish to go in that direction.

    Other than that, I think you have the softness of female anatomy there, just need to work on developing your observational eye and anatomy understanding.  You got this.  Keep going!

  • johndangcg replied

    Thanks!

    I've been using zygotebody and books like anantomy for sculpters avidly when I was sculpting this mesh. Muscle definition and proportion continues to be a problem so having the diagram drawn out on my mesh helps a lot.

    I planned to retopo and rig the sculpt when I thought it was good enough to pass initial anatomy inspection. I was referencing the character modeling and sculpting courses when I decided on the A pose. I remember an old instructor telling me that having the legs bent a little helps determine the bones pivot orientation, perhaps this isn't relevant info anymore?

    All in all, Thanks for the advice. I'll try to put your advice to use.

  • silentheart00 replied

    Yeah, no problem!

    Ah, okay, good that you have references.  Now it's just practice, practice, practice.  Another good thing to keep in mind is to work large to small.  Nail those proportions first, then you can sculpted out the muscles, then definition, wrinkles, etc.  Maybe you heard that before, but it's definitely a good thing to practice as it's a lot easier to make changes in the big forms than in the details.

    It's been a while since I looked at the courses on here.  I know there's new courses released for 2.8 and looks like 2.9 will be on the horizon, so I'm not sure which courses you're referencing.  If you're going for an A pose, you could angle the arms out a little more so the shoulder deformations are more consistent.  

    For the legs, I'll have to do more research into it, but I think if the bones are angled in the side view, it should be okay.  In fact, the leg is slightly bent in the side view on people, so that should be okay.  Again, I'll have to research that more.

    Happy to help.

  • johndangcg replied

    I was referencing Jonathans intro to character modeling and Kents modeling realistic characters course. Apologize on being a vague on which courses I used.

    Thanks for the help.

  • silentheart00 replied

    Thanks for clearing that up.  You got this.

  • solmorgan replied

    Thank you for the help!

  • solmorgan replied

    thanx