Hey there!
Just found out about this website, figured I’d give it a shot. It appears most people posting here are very experienced, hope I ain’t too much of a beginner to post.
Anyways, I am trying to learn sculpting because I want to make a custom minifigure for D&D purposes. I’ve been messing around with it, watching some tutorials and I somehow managed to make something that actually looks human, sorta.
It might look okay to me, but it’s probably an anatomical disaster. I can see that the arms and shoulders look off already, but not yet sure what’s wrong.
My question is, what I should fix, and what should be the next step afterwards? This is just the base frame for what will later become this demonic entity thing, I’ll insert a picture to give a point of reference as to what I am aiming for.
So this is sorta where I am at. But is it even feasible to make minifigures this way? Am I on the right track? You guys definitely know better, any feedback, help or guidance is appreciated. I don’t mind criticism, be as harsh as you see necessary.
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You are on the right track. I would say your overall proportions are good. The calves and the forearms are rather large for a realistic human, for a stylized or mystical creature perhaps they are spot on.
Probably the best advice you can get at this stage is practice, practice, practice. Depending on the level of detail/realism that you are trying to achieve anatomy study can take years to get to a high level of understanding. But don’t let this intimidate you. It doesn’t take long to understand the basics of proportions. How long should the legs be? How far apart are the eyes? What size should the hands be? These question you will get an answer to early on. How do you sculpt a knee an any position? What do the tendons on the back of the hand look like? The answer to these questions usually come later through focused practice.
To make the character you have pictured, you need more of an understanding of proportions than you do of human anatomy. That thing doesn’t have normal knee cap, but it does have human like proportions. The same can be said about the miniatures you want to model. Most probably won’t have exposed knees. They will be covered with armor of some sort. So getting the proportion of the leg right and sculpting believable armor is what is important.
To get back to my main point, all this takes practice. Don’t get hung up on your first model not coming out perfectly. Rather, take that model as far as you can, and then let it serve as a bench mark. Then sculpt it again, or sculpt something else that pushes your understanding a little bit further. And just keep doing that. Accept the fact that your first sculpts will probably look like garbage. Everyone’s does. I have a character that I have never finished. I modeled the head and then modeled the body separately. Not being happy with the results, it has turned into my practice file. I have since modeled the body 10 or 12 times, usually giving myself about 2 hours to sculpt the body from a sphere, neck to toes. The intended purpose of these sessions is to get better, not to make something that I want to share.
Like I said at the start, your proportions are good. You are on the right track, just keep at it.
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Hey, thanks, lad!
I will take your advice, I won’t make this my final model for sure.
But could you try to explain what the next step should be in a project like this when I am at this stage?
I think most people do a BRRR style of sculpting. Block, remesh, refine, remesh, refine, remesh, etc.
Blocking is going to be something like what you have. Various primitives arranged to get the bulk of the mass laid out to get the overall shape. Minimal sculpting, probably lots of big, stretched polygons. Your first remesh will have you join some or all of these primitives together. This is done in object mode. Shift select multiple objects then press ctrl-j. Then in sculpt mode, press r. This will pull up a grid that represents what the new polygon size will be. Drag the mouse and decrease the size of the squares a bit. Now press ctrl-r. This will remesh the object. Now you can start sculpting, You need very few brushes when sculpting. The grab brush to move stuff around. The draw brush or clay strips brush to add value. The crease brush to cut sharp lines into the mesh. And then maybe the inflate, pinch, scrape or flatten brushes to a lesser extent.
Once you have taken the geometry as far as it can go, reduce the polygon size and remesh again. Work the level of detail up in this manner. Don’t try to jump to a 10 million polygon count in the beginning. If your basic forms are off you will have trouble getting them right at this stage. Instead gradually introduce more details are you keep refining the mesh. You can easily remsesh a model 10-20 times which isn’t a big deal. As you get use to this method you may only spend 10-20 minutes at any given level of detail before you remesh again. This helps you keep good form and helps prevent your models from looking lumpy and weird in the end.
Hope that answers your question.
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Thanks again, lad!
Well, sort of yes. At this point there are so many things to do and so many small thing I do not yet know how to do ideally I am not even sure what to ask, but thank you for your advice!
I know. It can be a lot to take in when first getting started. It’s usually a double edged sword. There is the technical side, as in how do you make Blender do the things you want to do, And there is the artistic side as in I want to learn how to sculpt. Trying to do both of these on your own can be tough. I highly recommend watching some videos, and working through some tutorials. This can help with the technical side and give you an understanding of a good workflow. Once you have that, you can start to sculpt not think about it. This is when your sculpting skills will start to take off.
I would check out SpeedChar. His workflow has help me a lot. He sculpts everything in real time and talks his way through it. He has a lot of free content and some paid courses too.
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