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My first model. Yantu


LorenzoS
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Hi all. It's been tuff learning 3d-coat. I've had it about a month now, since mid January. I gave the manual a full once over. Gonna do my second run right away.

I'm starting to get the hang of things. I wish I would have purchased a sculpting app a long time ago.

I felt really behind for a while when I read people talking about voxels. Now I know what the fuss was all about.

Anyway, here's a work in progress. I plan to finish this character. The upper body will be added next.

Yantu. He's alien, he has some seahorse characteristics. At least that's my plan with the final.

I'm new to all this so, feedback is appreciated. I'll post my progress. Seeing all the great work in these forums makes it look easy. It's not. Respect to all of you. Hat's off to the Vet's and newbies like me.

Oh yeah. Gotta figure out the limits of my machine. I need more memory. I only have 2Gb in my Macbook Pro.

I started with a free form cube primitive. Man I love 3d-Coat!

post-4659-0-81234100-1298456108_thumb.jp

post-4659-0-20967800-1298456110_thumb.jp

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great start! I find the above quite well balanced but still down to work ;)

Thanks, Chris. I was just kicking myself because I made the upper leg portion a 1/2 head to long. I'm looking through the manual to see how to shrink only the legs.

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Suffered a major defeat today. It was difficult to make a hand in this style of modeling. I'll try again late tonight when I have some more time.

I couldn't quite get the snake tool to do what I wanted it to do when making the fingers. Getting a right angle was hard.

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I never was a friend of anatomy and I wont be. But all your problems with drawing-sketching are coming from a weakness on abstract composition. Give some time on playing with abstract clean forms. A human body is mostly an illusion.

You're trying hard and you achieved an interesting result here. But you lost some dynamics, gravity feel. Its difficult to explain further, just an advice. Do as many studies as you can from classic sculpture references. Ancient, egyptian, greek... mayan. African. These masterpieces aren't caricatures or something. These mostly include a magic construction-geometry inside. The real meaning of "esoteric". (BTW All other meanings of this world are for the birds LOL). Humanism as an extension of geometry. :drinks:

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I never was a friend of anatomy and I wont be. But all your problems with drawing-sketching are coming from a weakness on abstract composition. Give some time on playing with abstract clean forms. A human body is mostly an illusion.

You're trying hard and you achieved an interesting result here. But you lost some dynamics, gravity feel. Its difficult to explain further, just an advice. Do as many studies as you can from classic sculpture references. Ancient, egyptian, greek... mayan. African. These masterpieces aren't caricatures or something. These mostly include a magic construction-geometry inside. The real meaning of "esoteric". (BTW All other meanings of this world are for the birds LOL). Humanism as an extension of geometry. :drinks:

I do understand what you're saying, michalis. Thank you for your advice. I'm still learning. I've only been studying art for a few years now. Learning mostly from 'Riven Phoenix'. His DVD series, 'Drawing the Human Figure from you mind'

Now that i'm learning some of the basics I know i have a ways to go. Like you said above about studying classic art. I know this must be done. So, thank you for the critique. I will still complete as many works as I can with what little knowledge i have.

One question. When you say clean forms: do you mean, do not try to show every muscle, but be more subtle?

Thank you.

Cheers.

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'Drawing the Human Figure from you mind'

Don't do this, never as a study, give some more time for watching real figures as possible. In front of you as possible. Its not easy to have these opportunities, I know. I finished an art academy once upon a time. The most I remember was these live models. Even there I couldn't touch. In museums, I can't. But I had this opportunity, once or twice. This is the most fantastic that happened to me. Its the real time machine. Believe me.

Clean forms, yes, start with some primitives, a few booleans. Then just broadly move. A few spontaneous strokes. A few pinch strokes. Try not to focus on naturalism at this moment. Think as a rather hard surface modeling. I think, then, a few sketching like thin strokes could start giving you what you want, turn this to muscles. Don't do much, watch for not loosing the clean nice structure. Does this helps?

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'Drawing the Human Figure from you mind'

Don't do this, never as a study, give some more time for watching real figures as possible. In front of you as possible. Its not easy to have these opportunities, I know. I finished an art academy once upon a time. The most I remember was these live models. Even there I couldn't touch. In museums, I can't. But I had this opportunity, once or twice. This is the most fantastic that happened to me. Its the real time machine. Believe me.

Clean forms, yes, start with some primitives, a few booleans. Then just broadly move. A few spontaneous strokes. A few pinch strokes. Try not to focus on naturalism at this moment. Think as a rather hard surface modeling. I think, then, a few sketching like thin strokes could start giving you what you want, turn this to muscles. Don't do much, watch for not loosing the clean nice structure. Does this helps?

Yes, it helps. I did start to think that I need to learn from more sources. I've been studying 'Robert Beverly Hale'. He seems to focus on the classics more.

So thank you. I'll continue my studies and 'look' more at real people. My dream is to create super hero and fantasy characters. There is no short cut.

I started studying at 34, now I'm 37 and wish I started as a child. But it's never to late.

Cheers.

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No, its never too late. I don't believe this. You'll have your super heros soon.

I hope its ok to post this here. Just a 10 min sketch, maybe I'll continue this. A boy by the sea maybe. "my" super heroes. Fishermen.

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No, its never too late. I don't believe this. You'll have your super heros soon.

I hope its ok to post this here. Just a 10 min sketch, maybe I'll continue this. A boy by the sea maybe. "my" super heroes. Fishermen.

Of course it's ok to post here. I was hoping for some interaction with someone.

I SEE what you mean by subtleties. I'm gonna try this before getting back to my original posts.

I see you used the curves tool. Awesome work. Your strokes are natural. You use different primitives. Love it, Thanks, michalis. Keep going. I'm here.

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OK thanks, yes, interaction is what missing in this forum, I believe so.

curves, why not?

As we use to say in this forum, many ways to skin a cat, don't worry there're plenty of different cats in the 3d world.

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OK thanks, yes, interaction is what missing in this forum, I believe so.

curves, why not?

As we use to say in this forum, many ways to skin a cat, don't worry there're plenty of different cats in the 3d world.

No, curves are wonderful. I'm gonna try making a new hand using the curves tool this time. Seems like fingers would be a breeze this way.

I remember seeing zbrush videos with those zSphere things. It's like that and more.

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Hi Lorenzo - I agree with Michalis on his points regarding your work.

Reference is key, even when aproaching modeling monsters or aliens (and other things from your head) one usually bases them form reality. Michalis suggestions regarding blocking out forms with curves and voxel primitives are also a good way to start (kind of like squinting your eye out of focus when figure drawing to see the base forms and not being confused/distracted by the detail)- keep on working on sketches and studies as well as the longer term finished pieces - also dont be afraid to throw something away if it just not working - we all have uninished works on our hard drives, at the same time also try and finsih stuff - good work takes time - (my weaknes is quick sketches - I need to finish some stuff off too).

- I look forward to seeing more stuff

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Zspheres, but here you have voxels and you can be more free. Just use more than 1M resolution. What will happen in retopo room is another story. LOL But there're some tricks.

Yeah, I agree, we have the advantage of curves being voxels. Sooo sweet.

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Hi Lorenzo - I agree with Michalis on his points regarding your work.

Reference is key, even when aproaching modeling monsters or aliens (and other things from your head) one usually bases them form reality. Michalis suggestions regarding blocking out forms with curves and voxel primitives are also a good way to start (kind of like squinting your eye out of focus when figure drawing to see the base forms and not being confused/distracted by the detail)- keep on working on sketches and studies as well as the longer term finished pieces - also dont be afraid to throw something away if it just not working - we all have uninished works on our hard drives, at the same time also try and finsih stuff - good work takes time - (my weaknes is quick sketches - I need to finish some stuff off too).

- I look forward to seeing more stuff

Thanks for your feedback, jake_H. I'm gonna take a few days and look at some references as you suggest, before jumping back in. I got a little excited and heavy handed with my first model. Went straight for the details, you know. Mistake. I knew from the start something was not right with my approach. I've learned a few things even with this short experiment. 3d-Coat made it affordable to have a professional sculpting app, and I'm just so anxious to dive right in.

I'll talk to you guys on Friday night. Thursday is date night with the wife. We're having our first child soon. 3-4 months in so far. I wanna make sure I make her feel loved as much as I love art right now.

Cheers.

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Good start with voxels and Curves are good for hands but...

When we were looking at the curve tool the whole point of adding functionality was so we can use it to lay the voxels were we want them without pushing and pulling from a single piece. Use them loosely to build form as Michallis suggests and they can be really powerful.

try not to go too complex too early especially when using curves. for this reason curves can be your worst enemy when making hands. Voxel volumes by nature will merge into a single form if in close proxcimity, so if you volume is too low you will just end up with a merged mess.

Dependant on the complexcity of the required result I often model hands onto base seperately and detail in 3d coat after for this reason.

Loose curve base by example -

post-1266-0-67182200-1299770418_thumb.jp

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also dont be afraid to throw something away if it just not working

+++ so right.

LJB

+++ as well

So LorenzoS, feel free to post your next sculpt. We're watching you. LOL Come on now, we know nothing, just try to have some fun, thats all. All these should be considered as ideas, nothing more.

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Good start with voxels and Curves are good for hands but...

When we were looking at the curve tool the whole point of adding functionality was so we can use it to lay the voxels were we want them without pushing and pulling from a single piece. Use them loosely to build form as Michallis suggests and they can be really powerful.

try not to go too complex too early especially when using curves. for this reason curves can be your worst enemy when making hands. Voxel volumes by nature will merge into a single form if in close proxcimity, so if you volume is too low you will just end up with a merged mess.

Dependant on the complexcity of the required result I often model hands onto base seperately and detail in 3d coat after for this reason.

Loose curve base by example -

post-1266-0-67182200-1299770418_thumb.jp

Hi LJB. I'm a huge fan of your work. You really have the eye for everything that makes a great figure.

Your example really, really helps. I never thought of creating this way.

One question about you statement above,

'Dependant on the complexcity of the required result I often model hands onto base seperately and detail in 3d coat after for this reason.'

Do you mean you make a simple base in another, polygon based app and then bring into 3d-coat for detal?

This seems logical. I'm finding smaller things a little more difficult to do in 3d coat.

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+++ so right.

LJB

+++ as well

So LorenzoS, feel free to post your next sculpt. We're watching you. LOL Come on now, we know nothing, just try to have some fun, thats all. All these should be considered as ideas, nothing more.

michalis, thank you. It feels good to have a few people stop by to be a mentor to me. Please stay around for my next try.

Grazie

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Hi LJB. I'm a huge fan of your work. You really have the eye for everything that makes a great figure.

Your example really, really helps. I never thought of creating this way.

One question about you statement above,

'Dependant on the complexcity of the required result I often model hands onto base seperately and detail in 3d coat after for this reason.'

Do you mean you make a simple base in another, polygon based app and then bring into 3d-coat for detal?

This seems logical. I'm finding smaller things a little more difficult to do in 3d coat.

Not exactly, Very often I work in 3d coat initially, giving a general idea of the volume of the hands then bring out partially completed topology add hands then re-import as fresh over Voxel and bake then make seams and hands good in the paint room.

example -

post-1266-0-40634400-1299784385_thumb.pn

See, though the hands and feet are there, they are only gestural as to how i want them.

At the end of the day there is no hard fast rule here just experiment until you find your flow. Keep experimenting if theres one thing about 3D-Coat that worth a mention its the fact that it makes you play for a result and Im not sure any one person works the same using the tool.

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