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1 - Preparation & Head Sculpting

Research

15th August 2019

info License CC-BY
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Author

Julien Kaspar

In this video we'll follow up on the previous lesson by looking up different types of references & inspirations, as well as giving the reasons why. Afterwards we'll create a collage of references to always be available on the side while you create the character.

Links mentioned in the video:
  • 02:00 - Anatomy for Sculptors: Anatomy book for human anatomy, demonstrated for 3D recreation
  • 02:00 - Anatomy of Facial Expressions: Anatomy book on facial structure & muscle movement to create believable expressions
  • 04:00 - PureRef: Software to arrange, adjust and display a collage of images
Other helpful links:
  • Polycount Wiki: A vast collection of helpful technical articles and more. Mainly targeted towards game assets but still helpful for movie character creation as well.
  • Articulation Theory: Great reference on topology for moving joints and facial articulation.

16 Comments

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David OB

1st October 2019 - 04:24

Great video Julien I knew you were creative but this is mesmerizing.

Mark Stephen Gasoey

2nd February 2020 - 18:34

Summary of what kind of reference you should use. made this for myself as I think it's helpful in just any future project :)

Style Reference: (3D Animation School Characters, Movie Characters, Sculpts from movies)

Design Reference: (Actor Photos, Concept Art, Hairstyle, Clothing, etc.)

Technical Reference: (Polycount, Topology, Material Set-up)

Real Life Reference: (Expression Sheet, Fabric Behavior Anatomy Books, Take Real life photos of yourself)

David Kintu

27th March 2020 - 09:15

*@Mark Stephen Gasoey* what is a polycount reference?

Julien Kaspar

27th March 2020 - 10:19

*@David Kintu* It's how dense your topology needs to be. It refers to the total number of polygons (faces).
Here's an interesting example of 2 extreme opposites. We'll try to hit something in between for the course ;) alt text

Abdul Fahim

18th April 2020 - 11:54

I am an animator by day and I always wanna learn sculpting as its so intuitive whenever I try to take ref from online or photos to learn and match but in the end its sucks. My real concern is when I take ref from online its always not the same parts of the same person in a different angle example am trying to learn how to do nose and I search online there are a lot of noses and from a lot of people how my suppose to learn with those different shapes??

Julien Kaspar

20th April 2020 - 11:10

*@Abdul Fahim* Even though there are various shapes to almost every human feature, there are always common elements between them. I can really recommend some anatomy books like these: https://anatomy4sculptors.com/collections/books?gclid=CjwKCAjwkPX0BRBKEiwA7THxiPOdnQAiI8zOPc3aaVgfSlrS4mIBXcCTAt7mqCi0GDxXQ-rbtjRgyRoCe64QAvD_BwE

They show a lot of simplified geometric shapes for how the body is commonly build.

Abdul Fahim

22nd April 2020 - 08:13

*@Julien Kaspar* thanks

keraatona

9th August 2020 - 17:18

i was able download pureref for free but then they said that they would be happy if donated so i gave them the last 1.5$ i got in my credit card and they started to thank me guys i feel so proud of my self

Julien Kaspar

10th August 2020 - 11:16

*@keraatona* Well done man! Always great to support the developers :D

keraatona

10th August 2020 - 11:59

*@Julien Kaspar* btw thanks for your great tutorial

and may i ask 2 things first i know that you said these characters will not work with vidio games is that because they are not riged? for me that is no proplom because i know how to rig characters but if that is not the reason then may i know what is it? seacond is there any advise for creating an anime styled character? agein thanks a lot for this tutorial it is great

Julien Kaspar

10th August 2020 - 16:55

*@keraatona* The character can work for video games but they are not going to be optimised for them. There are differences in the workflow, mainly in retopology & texturing. More about that in the retopology introduction.

I already saw some other people making anime characters and I can recommend not to make them too undefined. Anime characters are often pretty anatomically accurate except for the exaggerated eyes, nose & mouth, so don't let the flat coloring fool you :)

keraatona

10th August 2020 - 20:14

*@Julien Kaspar* thanks for anwsring me :)

Yermek Zakariyah

1st April 2020 - 22:12

PureRef is not free anymore

Julien Kaspar

2nd April 2020 - 00:55

*@Yermek Zakariyah* It is. You just have to set the price to 0.

Afolabi Samuel

11th April 2020 - 10:35

please i am having a problem downloading the pureref

Julien Kaspar

11th April 2020 - 12:11

*@Afolabi Samuel* I can't help if I don't know what the problem is ;)