Anatomy and Character Sculpture - Fundamentals of Anatomy and Digital Sculpting

on
29/3/2022 - 20/5/2022 / Week 1 - Week 8
Lui Hsiao Hui (Tressa) / 0342003
Anatomy and Character Sculpture / Entertainment Design
Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media
Fundamentals of Anatomy and Digital Sculpting (Exercises)

LECTURES

Week 1

Fig. 1.1 & 1.2 Week 1 lecture and demo, Week 1 (29/3/2022)

During the week 1 lecture, we were briefed about the assignments for this module and topics that we will learn about anatomy and sculpting with ZBrush. Subsequently, Mr. Kannan did a demo for Exercise 1 - using simple shapes to create the form of the head and body.

Form study: To understand form in 2D and 3D space.
Dissect, extract info > rebuild basic shape


Week 2

Fig. 1.3-1.7 Week 2 lecture and demo, Week 2 (5/4/2022)

This week we learned how to dissect and form anatomy using 2D and 3D shapes. We learned the human body ratio of 7 to 8 figureheads and structure outline of where the joints are. Besides that, we were instructed to simplify the human skeleton into shapes of ovals, triangles and rectangles etc.


Week 3

Fig. 1.8 & 1.9 Week 3 lecture and demo, Week 3 (12/4/2022)

This week was all about landmarking anatomy structure. We also started to explore ZBrush, and get used to the various tools and layouts. We were then tasked to model a head, as well as draw human skulls in multiple angles.


Week 4

Public holiday - Nuzul Al-Quran


Week 5

Fig. 1.10-1.12 Week 5 lecture and demo, Week 5 (28/4/2022)

This week we were tasked to study the human torso with multiple drawings of front, back and ¾ views. We also had to sculpt a torso in ZBrush. Mr. Kannan did a demonstration on blocking out the shapes using spheres and cylinders and then using the ClayBuild up tool to sculpt the muscles.


Week 6

Public holiday - Hari Raya

INSTRUCTIONS


Tasks

Week 1:
  1. Collect references (faces, poses, etc)
  2. Exercise 1: Form - 3 heads: front, side, 3/4
  3. Download ZBrush

Week 2:
  1. Collect references - front back side 3/4 top bottom (full body)
  2. Breakdown - basic shapes
  3. Skeletal landmark
  4. Shape manipulation (form)
  5. Explore ZBrush

Week 3:
  1. Draw skulls & landmark them - 10 different angles
  2. Start sculpting a head in Zbrush

Week 5:
  1. Draw human torso breakdowns
  2. Sculpt a torso

Week 6:
  1. Sculpt full body
  2. Continue with remaining drawing exercises

Fundamentals of Anatomy and Digital Sculpting (Exercises)

Drawings
Fig. 2 Drawing exercises, Week 1-8 (29/3-20/5/2022)

References were sourced from Google, Pinterest and Unsplash. From these exercises, I realised that I often use 2D shapes to block out human proportions, instead of 3D shapes to portray the form accurately (most evident in how I draw the human body). It's a habit and also the product of a 'getting proportions done fast' mindset.


Sculpting
In week 4, we were instructed to explore sculpting a head. For this sculpture exploration, I used ZBrush Core Mini since I could not get the full ZBrush yet. ZBrush Core Mini was quite limited and had no function of working in layers (subtools), so I had to sculpt the head on one sphere.


Fig. 3.1 Head - front, Week 5 (24/4/2022)


Fig. 3.2 Head - ¾ front, Week 5 (24/4/2022)


Fig. 3.3 Head - side, Week 5 (24/4/2022)


Fig. 3.4 Head - ¾ back, Week 5 (24/4/2022)


Fig. 3.5 Head - back, top and bottom, Week 5 (24/4/2022)

I was really rushing with time for this one so I tried using the build-in nose, lips and ears. However, the built-in nose and lips didn't look too good and they were tough to refine to create the face of my character so I ended up just sculpting them myself. I did keep the ears since they worked fine, I just tweaked their shape and proportions. It was most challenging to sculpt the eyes because of the folds and the absence of working with subtools.


Fig. 4.1 Female torso references, Week 7 (9/5/2022)

In week 7, I worked on a new sculpture with these anatomy images as my references.


Fig. 4.2 Progress, Week 7 (9/5/2022)

First, I blocked out the (simplified) muscles and the body in simple shapes.


Fig. 4.3 Head blockout, Week 7 (9/5/2022)


Fig. 4.4 Full body blockout, Week 8 (19/5/2022)


Fig. 4.5 Progress, Week 8 (20/5/2022)

After blocking out the shapes, I merged them together and sculpted the details. I also used DynaMesh and ZRemesher to fix some bumpiness.


Fig. 4.6 Hell, Week 8 (20/5/2022)

During this stage, I encountered a problem I did not need and it took several hours of testing and YouTube tutorials to find out what was wrong. First, I tried reducing the poly count using Decimate, but the file still crashed whenever I tried saving it and would lose all progress. Then I tried reducing the poly count using ZRemesher, still did not work. Then I found a video suggesting to delete undo history, I did just that and it finally stopped crashing.


Fig. 4.7 Full body - front, Week 8 (20/5/2022)


Fig. 4.8 Full body - ¾ front, Week 8 (20/5/2022)


Fig. 4.9 Full body - side, Week 8 (20/5/2022)


Fig. 4.10 Full body - back, Week 8 (20/5/2022)


Fig. 4.11 Full body - ¾ back, Week 8 (20/5/2022)


Fig. 4.12 Sculpture exploration, Week 5-8 (24/4-20/5/2022)


Some 'artsy' display of the sculpture because I suffered too much to not turn it into art.

Fig. 5.1 "Lights Out", Week 8 (21/5/2022)


Fig. 5.2 & 5.3 "Heaven in Hiding", Week 8 (21/5/2022)


FEEDBACKS

Week 3: Landmark the sections with different colours, label them and add contour lines (how much are you banding in, what direction). Capture the mass - how much volume and how solid. Landmark the skeleton as well, with 8/7 figureheads.

Week 5: Add reflections to the exercises - notes on how the jaw/parts function, the curvatures, joints etc. Draw a side view of the mouth open as well.

Week 7: Make sure to do the eyes separately (week 4-5 head). There's an improvement from the week 4-5 head and week 6-7 torso and muscle studies. 

Week 9: The ear needs to be more blended in, more fine-tuning on the facial features, make them more prominent, slightly shift the ears back to the centerline, and slightly move the jaw back (less parallel to the nose).

REFLECTION

It was mundane at times to draw anatomy, especially muscles because it felt like studying health in highschool again. Through the exercises I realised a certain way of how I draw humans, particularly the way my strokes are often straight and angular with the use of 2D shapes instead of 3D. I found that it was a habit formed from 'fast drawing' over the years, something I should work to correct even if I understood 3D form. These exercises also challenged my resilience because I did felt really unmotivated and burned out to draw. Sculpting wasn't necessarily too hard, its just that working with a new software truly tested my patience. Often I became extremely frustrated and tired because it took too long to get the sculpt the way I wanted and to get the software to  w o r k. I've still got much to learn about 3D modelling and the various tools in ZBrush, and I hope in future tasks I get better at working with 3D sculpting.


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