Dante by Attila Mucsi

[mucsiattila]

Hi!

Here I am again... freshly with my new personal project: Dante from Dante's Inferno (the game and the anime). Not the same guy, just something similar.
Half an year ago I was trying to do a female character, but no success. So I decided to ask for some help here for this new piece of work. I hope you will enjoy as much as I will.

(programs: Zb, Max, PS)

Step 0 - The Goal


Step 1 - Reference and Basics
I made a basic z-sphere model in Zb, added the reference image, that i found on the internet. I know its not the best, but its perfect for proportions and simple enough. So I added the ref, that adjusted my Z-spehere guy, made adaptive skin, and started to play with move brush to make something humanoid.



Step 2 - Bulking up the Torso
I was trying to understand human anatomy, I was watching images and tutorials, and ofc other people's work. Its totaly not an easy thing. But! Drawing the main lines on the base body and bulking with Clay Tubes brush between or along these lines can help a lot. I also used Move, Standard and Smooth, to get the shape of muscles. Maybe its not as accurate as I wanted, but still better than ever.


So! This is the first post, please comment, and help me being better.
See you soon!

Step 3 - Arms and begining the Head
First notice: when you use z-spheres, never forget to get the right size of them. It was a real pain to make the fingers bigger. Other parts like biceps or triceps are much easyer, but still not piece of cake. If you dont know anatomy (like I do not), than you will find that something is not correct, but dont know what. So try to learn it, or get frien as I did. Peter is a friend of mine sice my childhood, and he has learnt sculpting in high scool, so he has some idea about anatomy. He helped a lot and will help more, so I can pass the learning section in this case. Sooner or later I will have to get this knowlidge, but not now...
So I did some corrections on the back and shoulders with his backup, and also made the arms. I didnt want to do all the details, just wanted to get the basic shapes. Some of the muscles will be resized later, and some of them will be detailed if needed. Ofc not the covered parts, like hands and legs.
Next step is the head. I watched some speedsculpting tutorials on the net. You can find a lot, and it can be handy to "steel" tricks and techniques from professionals. Its still not easy, but playing with brushes as much as needed will finaly give you a head-like thing. I know its far from realistic, but I think its good for begining.
Maybe I will finish it next day, maybe not. I'm too tired now, so see you soon, and sleep well.

[mucsiattila]

Step 4 - rest of the Head, and the Trouble
I was going well with the head I think, but something went wrong. After a couple of readjusting I realized, that I still cant rid of this asian looking. What is wrong with this guy? What did I do or what didnt I do?
Please, please help me! Dante cant be an asian Okay... it wont exactly look like the game character, but still has to be a european dude.

[Tjakalen]

I don't think asian is the right way to describe his looks really. You sort of need to un-box his face, his ass and, well, the rest of him I suppose.

What references did you use for this? When you do anatomy you need to pay a lot of attention to proportions and how shapes flow together across the surface.

[mucsiattila]

Hi! thx for reply
for the face I used this page:
http://www.portrait-artist.org/face/structure2.html

for the entire body i use a 8 head tall measure giude, and some anatomy ref images created ba Matt Corcoran:
http://www.corcoran3d.com/images/Cor...ale_Orthos.jpg

ofc my guy will be more muscular, so i had to bulk up muscles, but I realy tried to follow the main bodylines. I dont want to do a 100% perfect anatomy, mostly becouse I cant, but if I will make something as precise and detailed as this:
http://i369.photobucket.com/albums/o...ram_wip_14.jpg
I would be more than satisfied.
I dont use reference images about the character of Dante becouse of 2 reasons: I didnt find any front/side view of him, and I dont want to make the same guy, someone did before.

so, thx for helping... I will try to unbox him

[Cordero]

hi there! your references are good, but you need to copy them, and study them more closely. For example the pectoral muscle on your sculpture, is a little bit outside of the whole waist area. while in reality, the pectoral muscle is just above that part of the body. If you draw a straight line from the nipple of your sculpture downwards, it will leave the body's silhouette at some point. While in reality, it doesn't! (check out it on the 3d reference you posted.)
And because of the wrong placement of the pectoral muscle, the whole shoulder is at a wrong place.

There is also a missing muscle between the shoulder, and the neck region called the trapezius. (at least thats what googles says ) which is most critical to get the whole neck region right.

Also, the Abs region is probably incorrect, since the whole guy is pretty "thin" in terms of body fat, so there is no explanation, why he doesn't have 8 pack abs. (which is how many muscle every man has there, but the lower 4 merges because of the body fat, and thats is why its called 6 pack abs)

It was a good idea to pose the forearm that way, because its the simplest of all the poses it can "perform". But i'd say pay a lot more attention to that part, or cover it somehow, because its one of the mots complex part of the anatomy, and it should be left alone before you know all the other things.

There are plenty of things, minor things, which should be fixed but these are the main problems so far, and they are not to be left this way before moving on.

good luck, and let see some updates

[mucsiattila]

Hi again! Yesterday I tried to fix the problrms you mentioned, but no success yet. I think I've found a base problem in this project. In previous works I knew clear what I want. In this case I had a reference for proportions and muscles (linked before), but not an exact "blueprint".
So I started to dig deeper, and found some usable pics, I would like to share:
pic1
pic2
pic3

and 2 more... maybe these are too muscular (a bit) but not bad I think
pic4
pic5

I think these pics can show what I think how Dante's body should look like. So I got new questions in my mind:
Am I right?
Should I restrart from the basics?
Do I use z-speres right?
Do I know anything about how to create a character?
Am I able to do this?
So if you are not too tired and not mad at me, pls post your opinions.

Thx in advance.

[Cordero]

Very nice reference images you found!

I don't know much about zspheres, so i can't help you with that one. But you have a high poly mesh, and thats what counts (and if you are going to make this a game model, then its not important, how you make your high poly, from zsphere or a base mesh from any other 3d application).

Don't be afraid, just use the move brush, and you could fix your model up in like 60 minutes to be like one of the pictures you posted.

I think you are capable of making this Dante guy, you just have to get the high poly right. (which wont be hard with these good references you have)

The thing about anatomy, that its most of the time just clicks. Like a language, you put a lot of effort in to it, and it seems that you are not getting better at all, but one day you notice, that you just know how to form sentences. And its the same with anatomy: once you get the feel of the shape, and "habits" of muscles, and their "relationship" with bones, you will use it correctly.
And based on your images, you are not far from getting it right, so keep up

[mucsiattila]

Back!

Today I decided to correct as many "errors" as I can, so I played 4 hrs with him. And I got back my enthusiasm!
So! Here is the body:


And his head:


ps: thx for encouragement. It counts a lot when ppl beleive in you!

pps: keep on posting critique!!! I need it!

[Tjakalen]

Head looks a lot better now, much more natural smooth features. For the torso anatomy you should probably not look at medical anatomy charts like that first reference you showed. Many of the strange features that was initially very noticeable seem to be derived from you basing his musculature of a skinless/fat-less body. That said you seem to be moving in the right direction, but some of it still remain. Try to have another look at the torsos total shape rather than specific areas, imagine a skeleton inside that body, notice how fragile built his ribcage and his pelvic bone would be compared to his shoulder width?

[Cordero]

looks better!

i'd advise these things:
-pull the chin in, its way too far out. (http://www.imageafter.com/dbase/imag...manoids050.jpg)

-the ear is huge, check out the earlier reference for help!
-the shape of the mouth could be improved. (type in "mouth" to google, scroll down a bit and there it is)
-the muscle which moves the neck has a different shape, and a different angle it comes down.

There are some other errors, but thats enough for now.
keep up the good work! you are improving pretty fast.

[mucsiattila]

And yeah! I'm back from my ashes!
So I did some changes on him. I tried to pay attention to what you said. I hope it is better now.
I turned on perspective in ZB becouse I have read that it is better to switch some times.
I think I will retopo the upper body after it gets the right shape (or something like it), so it will be easier to control the polycount and edge loops and make the details needed.
Please do comment as before. Thanks.

[Agent-X]

I suggest you go back to your lowest subdivision level and fix all your proportions first before moving on. Especially with the hands. They need to be much bigger. the size of the hand should be about 1 and 1/3 from the wrist to the elbow. That is what it is on me. I would probably start using image plane too. When I use zbrush, I always work the lowest subdivision level until the proportions are correct, then I sculpt each subdivision level up until it is perfect, and keep working up and up until i reach the highest subdivision level. I might skip a level or two if I can, but that is the general method I use. I hope this helps.

[mucsiattila]

Thx! I did some modifications on him. I put him in T pose becouse it is easier to measure the length of the arms and hands. I used ref image taken from a real person in T pose. I think it is geting better.

[Krallis]

His external obliques look too much like tubes. The serratus anterior (above the obliques) should also be visible on a man this well muscled.

[mucsiattila]

Yes... you are right (ofc). I will have to study some anatomy books. Thx