🧵 Untitled Thread
Anonymous at Sat, 4 May 2024 16:06:27 UTC No. 982416
I’m new to sculpting. What tips should I know to help me better understand and visualize the things I want to make?
Anonymous at Sat, 4 May 2024 16:44:18 UTC No. 982419
ALL /beg/ questions belong in /beg/
Anonymous at Sat, 4 May 2024 17:01:24 UTC No. 982421
>>982416
>What tips should I know to help me better understand and visualize the things I want to make
When you're observing a reference of something and making judgement about the spatial relationship between features,
pay careful attention not just to how the thing you are making line up to what's adjacent locally but look at the distance from that feature
to several landmarks around your subject. Finding out that something is off in your representation is easier if you compare it to the whole.
When you consider a curve or an outline of a feature don't just consider the shape of the feature itself but consider the shape of the outline
itself from the negative empty space side. Your brain has numerous preconceptions what a human is supposed to look like, but if you abstract the
shape from the negative side it is easier to see it for the shape as it actually exist in your reference.
That later is a quick trick to increase your accuracy making your eye measurements much more precise by simply doubling the data you're considering.
Sometimes your mind get tired and you need to walk away from a piece to see it with fresh eyes, but if you are under time constraints and need to judge
your shape more accuratly right now you can do things like flip the canvas upside down, invert the colors etc to stop seeing the surface as a familiar face
and view it more as raw geometry.
Pic related is a demo of how to do that, difference in shape of your cheek bone are harder to spot looking at your face as a face
but are trivial to spot when comparing the negative outline as something unfamiliar.
Anonymous at Sat, 4 May 2024 18:20:50 UTC No. 982427
ayy lmao
Anonymous at Sat, 4 May 2024 19:26:34 UTC No. 982431
>>982421
Thank you. I also want to ask you
Ive been trying to closely look at the shadows on the reference because I’m thinking that’s how I can fully grasp the shape of the face and the cheeks, but is this the right way to do this
Anonymous at Sat, 4 May 2024 20:02:23 UTC No. 982434
>>982431
shadows help inform you but problem is how different light cast different shadows depending on how direct or how diffuse/soft it is so it's difficult to judge geometry with any consistency that way. When I model or sculpt to capture the likeness of someone I like to use video reference and scrub thru and pause at various angles. Working around the face tweaking it from many different angles more rapidly brings out a good overall representation of the head.
Also be wary of what sort of lens is used, 'talking head' type shots of people are often shot with 85mm lenses as those tend to correspond to a flattering natural
sort of perspective distortion representing what that persons face would look like in person at conversational distance from your eye.
When I work on heads my default goto therefore is to view the head in a FOV of 24 degrees as this is representative of a 85mm lens (23.913 deg).
While working on the full body I typically switch to 35mm or FOV ~55.
Anonymous at Sun, 5 May 2024 19:05:59 UTC No. 982533
>>982421
Is it a good idea to use that trick often?
Or is it bad long term to use it?
I had to leave early so I used that to adjust the mouth and other things that were off to match the likeness.
Anonymous at Sun, 5 May 2024 19:07:00 UTC No. 982534
to clarify I mean the last 10 minutes I used that method to move/grab things in the right places
Anonymous at Sun, 5 May 2024 19:58:31 UTC No. 982537
>>982533
>>982534
Use it as often as you like, over time you'll become better and better to spot inaccuracies without having to employ tricks like that,
it's just another tool to have in your arsenal to take accurate measurements while blinding your brain to what it wants those measures to be.
When you're sculpting a face for a long time, esp when you start to get skilled but yet don't have years and years of experience you can
easily slip into a mind state where you are making a face that is turning out better than anything you made til that point and you end up
giving it these sorta good looking features that you therefore grow unwilling to do heavy edits to.
Doing things like this help your brain snap out of it and see that something that looks sorta good still can be very off
compared to what it's supposed to be if you are trying to match a specific look in a reference.
Anonymous at Mon, 6 May 2024 06:10:44 UTC No. 982567
>>982416
Color changes do not necessarily indicate plane changes.
If you have orthogonal view(aka, isometric view) switched on, turn it off. No person is viewed that way, because perspective is ever present. Look up "focal length" and how it changes our perspective on the human face. And then after you get the concept, try to match the focal length of your camera with the photo. Which will require some guesstimation.
Anonymous at Tue, 7 May 2024 00:01:39 UTC No. 982631
>>982567
Im learning perspective so I will look more into this. I’m doing the speedchar face anatomy course which he says I should use 85mm most of the time
I’m trying to get a good head done everyday and then the next day try to make improvements that fit the reference.
as long as I keep the head planes in mind I shouldn’t be absorbing the reference the wrong way right?
Anonymous at Tue, 7 May 2024 00:14:53 UTC No. 982633
>>982631
>he says I should use 85mm most of the time
Yeah, he's right for general purposes. 85mm is good.
>as long as I keep the head planes in mind I shouldn’t be absorbing the reference the wrong way right?
Yeeeeah... for the most part. Personally, I find sticking to the example planes too rigidly can actually prevent you from capturing a likeness. The planes are general concepts that help guide you in tackling certain aspects of the face. But because everyone's face is a little different, you have to find the planes in *their* face.
Anonymous at Wed, 8 May 2024 00:48:24 UTC No. 982767
>>982755
>>982754
Well... it's something.
A constant mistake you're making throughout all your faces, is you're outlining the bottom lip with a deep indentation. Stop that. Just because the lip color changes there, that doesn't mean the geometry is doing all that. Draw the plains as they are, regardless of the color shift.
Anonymous at Wed, 8 May 2024 01:14:10 UTC No. 982770
>>982767
Thank you. I’m not good at anything yet, but lips and nostrils and noses specifically I know I suck at when making them. Even eyelids too
I don’t know how speedchar pulls out the nose so well, would it be too much to ask for tips on that
Anonymous at Wed, 8 May 2024 01:23:16 UTC No. 982772
>>982770
Sorry, I can't help you there. But I found a timestamp for one of speechar's videos where he addresses the nose.
https://youtu.be/cAr2cZsxdng?t=1129
Anonymous at Fri, 10 May 2024 10:33:33 UTC No. 982968
>>982767
Mouths are not in a plane, that's your problem.
When you sculpt always remember what's behind the skin
Your teeths are not in a plane, they are in a curve, so your mouth will set that way.
There's a million other problems with the sculpture, but for the mouth first change this.
Anonymous at Sat, 11 May 2024 21:43:14 UTC No. 983139
>>982754
>>982755
you're sculpting your lips into the faces, even if you plump up the lips later it still won't look right. It's the bones and the teeth that cause the mouth to come forward a little, as well as the flesh, so your sculpt looks like it's missing teeth.
You have to draw out a sort of mound that you sculp the lips into. You can probably just pull them forward now with the move brush, but it'll be easier if you do this beforehand.
Anonymous at Sat, 11 May 2024 23:13:28 UTC No. 983149
>https://www. youtube com/watch?v=J2_uiUEcY7w&list=PLtZ2r
this guys sculpt series really helped me get to a good level. Just switch his reference image with any human male or female image and go from there. pic related is what i made after this vid.
Anonymous at Mon, 13 May 2024 02:35:36 UTC No. 983254
Professional aaa 3d character artists here.
Look up anatomy for sculptors on artstation. They have a lot of good posts that would help you understand the shapes of the human body.
One of the biggest mistakes beginners make is making the faces super flat, as you did. Every shape, buldge, wrinkle, angle or whatever on the face flows into another and there is a reason why they are the shape they are. Those images hopefully will help you understand it