Even though we have almost no time to work due to the COVID lockdown, we managed to model two new secondary characters for our story, Gray and Savas, following our work-log plan.
We started with them, hoping the practice would help improve our anatomy knowledge and modeling skills, but we were wrong.
After finishing Gray, we were feeling confident. Compared to Lonan or Blaze, the quality of the model seemed higher.
We were happy with the anatomy and the skin we created, and we even modeled a few hairstyles for him.
The problem began when we started modeling Savas. We wanted him to have a more heroic, muscular anatomy than Gray, so we followed the instructions from Maddie Spencer’s book Digital Sculpting Human Anatomy and used image references of a bodybuilder from 3D.sk to get the proportions right.
We don’t know.
At some point, we thought the modeling was going well.
It wasn’t until we applied Savas’ skin and took a few sample renders that we realized he looked bad. We checked the face proportions using Loomis guides, and they were wrong. We fixed them, and he still looked terrible. There’s no hope. He’s a lost cause.
We felt even worse when we checked Lonan. His proportions are completely out of the norm. He’s basically an alien.
We couldn’t believe that the Loomis proportions could apply to every human, of every country, and still be accurate, so we ran some tests.
We downloaded images of 3D scans sold by 3D.sk and checked them in Photoshop with a Loomis guide overlaid to see if the proportions held true. THEY DO. EVERY TIME.
After seeing this, we understood that we’re terrible at modeling.
We know we can fix this if we keep trying and practice by modeling a thousand body types.
We also know that if we work hard, we can become excellent at modeling. But honestly, our dream is to write and illustrate stories, not to be the best sculptors in the world. And to learn to write and render cool scenes, we already have plenty to study.
We think it’s time to let go of trying to master anatomy and modeling and focus on putting our skills to better use.
We’ve developed a new method that we hope will improve the quality of our models. We’ll discuss it in our next post.
