Sculpting Human Anatomy

In the next three chapters, you will learn how to create a full character that is ready to be 3D printed. This book will show the creation of a gladiator. It is recommended that you follow along, but you can also pick another subject and apply the lessons to your own model.

In this chapter, we’ll start by creating realistic anatomy, a key skill that many professional ZBrush artists need to master to be attractive candidates for jobs in fields such as VFX or collectibles.

You’ll begin by gathering references and resources. This is a crucial step that will save you time later on and will help you sculpt an anatomically correct and believable body.

Next, you will block in the body using anatomy knowledge and plenty of reference images. After that, you will go through the individual muscle groups that affect the look of the body the most, showing examples and providing sculpting tips.

Finally, you will pose the model and add asymmetry to...

Technical requirements

For the best experience, it is recommended that you have a strong PC that meets the minimum requirements described in the Technical requirements section of Chapter 1. However, you can work on this chapter with just a mouse, a functional PC setup, and a ZBrush license.

Preparing anatomy references

In this section, we’ll gather references and resources to create our gladiator model, which will make your life easier later on; the preparation time will pay off in the final result. Figure 8.1 gives you an idea of what we are aiming for:

Figure 8.1 – Preview of the gladiator creation process

Important note

Remember that human anatomy cannot be learned at the same pace as you would learn a new software. Although you might be able to understand the information easily, translating this into a sculpture requires sculpting skills and precision with your brush strokes, which develop over time, so be patient with yourself if results don’t show immediately.

Gathering references

Let’s take a look at the different types of references you should be collecting.

Proportions and measurement charts

Proportions and measurements are essential for our task because they will help us create a realistic...

Blocking out the anatomy

In this section, you will block out the character. To do this, we will start by working with the skeleton and adjusting its proportions, after which we will work with the bash mesh, which includes working with bony landmarks. So, let’s get started.

Important note

There are advantages to blocking out the human body from scratch instead of using a base mesh. To show a more efficient and goal-oriented way of doing this, this book shows the workflow with a human base mesh.

If you want to study anatomy in more depth on a more fundamental level, there are many great resources available, but an especially popular and proven one is the website of artist Stan Prokopenko: https://www.proko.com/.

Starting with the skeleton

You should now have two subtools in your ZBrush session: Nickz_HumanMaleAverage and Ryan_Kingslien_Anatomy_Model. You can keep the anatomy model file open while you work on other files so that you can switch to it whenever you...

Refining the anatomy

In this section, you will explore the main muscles when you’re sculpting a believable human body. To begin, you will learn about some of the most useful sculpting brushes for creating muscles. Then, you will go through the individual muscle groups of the upper and lower body; references and sculpting tips will be included.

Useful brushes for anatomy sculpting

There are many approaches and tools you can use for creating anatomy in ZBrush, but as with most organic sculpting tasks, a few of the basic brushes will go a long way. Let’s look at some of the brushes that are perfect for beginners and advanced artists alike.

ClayBuildup

This brush is excellent for building up forms and creating unique shapes. Like with any sculpting work, this will be the primary brush of many artists when it comes to sculpting muscles.

By default, ClayBuildup comes equipped with a square alpha, but you can switch it to Alpha6 to get a smooth fall-off, which...

Finalizing the sculpture’s anatomy

When you are satisfied with the basic anatomy of your model, it is time to refine it, shifting your attention from anatomical correctness and accuracy to visual appeal. In this section, you will introduce asymmetry and change the pose from a neutral stance to one that is more dynamic and interesting. Finally, you will add veins and apply a skin texture using the NoiseMaker plugin.

Posing your model

At this point, you can go ahead and pose your model. Here’s a look at the difference between a neutral pose and a more dynamic one; you can see how introducing a shift in shoulders and hips can improve your character’s presentation:

Figure 8.59 – Neutral versus dynamic pose

While there are a couple of ways to pose your model in ZBrush, a good way of posing a simple model is to use masking and the Gizmo, as follows:

1. Switch to the lowest subdivision level.
2. Using MaskPen or any other...

Summary

Well done on finishing this chapter – it was probably the most information-dense and challenging one so far!

This chapter began with collecting various anatomy reference materials, including athlete pictures, the 8-head figure chart, and an écorché model to help create a more realistic sculpture. You learned about the importance of the skeleton, which you used alongside ZBrushs Nickz base mesh to establish an anatomically accurate starting point.

After that, you explored and sculpted many of the large, superficial muscles of the human body, and learned how they affect the appearance and shape of different body parts in the process. Next, you posed the body in a new way, making it more dynamic and engaging. This new pose, along with additional sculpting, added much-needed asymmetry to the model, increasing its realism and design quality.

Creating a well-sculpted human is one of the most challenging tasks for 3D modelers and ZBrush artists, so you can...