Original subtitles

Hello and welcome to chapter 1, so in chapter 1 we're going to start actually blocking out the base for our character to then sculpt on.

I'm using Blender 3.4 but anything later than this should be fine and anything earlier you should probably, the earliest you should use is probably 3.3

because we have some sculpt versus color features we're going to be using later on for texturing.

I think the feature doesn't really exist in the same way until 3.3 so that's probably the latest you should use.

In addition to that I also have some input screen recording down here so when I'm clicking the different stuff then you can see it here.

I will try to mention all the stuff that I do if there's special commands or features then I will try to keep those in mind and let you know.

But if I miss something then you can always check out the input there.

So in terms of blocking the stuff out in Blender it will be a combination of blocking out really primitives and then getting to a point where we can merge it all together and move into the sculpting phase.

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And on the right over here I also have my reference board that I'll be using just for checking for proportions and these things as we move along.

So the first thing we're going to do in Blender Scene is I'm going to remove the light and the camera, we don't need those.

And then I'm going to take this cube and then I'm going to split it down the middle so I can mirror it across the X axis.

So I'm going to go into the edit mode here and just put a loop cut and then I'm going to delete one side there and then I'm going to mirror this one over.

So now I have a mirrored cube.

I'm also going to turn on clipping, this just means that if I move the whole thing it sticks in the middle always.

And that's kind of what I want.

So my character is a little bit below 2 meters, maybe 185 or something.

And this right here marks 2 meters because the default cube is 2 meters tall.

So my character is probably going to be around there in height.

So I'm going to use that as a guide to kind of move everything in.

And I'm just going to move this in as a chest piece, so kind of the rib cage.

And I'm going to duplicate it and have one for the pelvis also.

And then I'm going to have a third one for the head as well, like this.

Cool.

I'm going to take them all and just squeeze them in like that.

So that's kind of the very basic block out here.

And then I'm going to bring that in.

Maybe we're going to bring them in as well.

And then this one I can twist a little bit because the chest piece is actually twisted.

I'm going to make sure to balance these ones out roughly.

Cool.

Something along those lines.

And then on top of this I'm going to add a subdivision surface modifier just to round everything out.

I'm going to use that to block out a more defined shape.

So something like that.

Let's see here.

We've got that going on there.

Something like that.

Maybe something along those lines.

And this is not super important, like exactly how good this looks.

It's just so we have something to build onto.

I just want this to be somewhat a rib cage shape.

This is probably fine.

It's not perfect, but it's good enough for what we need, I think.

And for the head here, I can block out something there, block out something there.

Then we've got a little bit more of a head shape.

And it can be quite helpful to just create something that's somewhat good.

It just tells you a bit earlier if your proportions are working.

We could also start sculpting this from a sphere.

I definitely prefer doing this more and more.

It's a bit more work in the beginning, but then it goes a lot faster when I'm getting into the sculpting process

because I'm figuring so many things out at a different kind of resolution now.

I prefer it that way, but there's no right and wrong, of course.

It's what I think works for me right now.

Cool.

This is where skeletal reference can be really good.

So if you have that kind of stuff on hand, then you can definitely use that.

Nice. Okay. So that's pretty good.

Then I'm going to create a cylinder here.

And the cylinder, we're going to use that as the base for our arms and legs.

And I'm going to make a mirror on this one.

I'm going to scale it down and move it out.

I'm going to make it mirror across the body here like that.

Cool.

Let's see here.

We could also use a cube for this, but I think this is okay just as a base.

We're not doing something incredibly crazy here.

And don't worry about the topology at all because we're merging everything afterwards anyways.

So that's really not what's important here.

I'm going to create another cylinder.

Move that out.

Turn off self-selection here like that.

And what I'm trying to create here is that natural kind of position of the legs where

– actually, I'm going to rotate these out a little bit –

where the thigh actually goes in a lot more than you think sometimes.

So let's see if I can find an example of it here.

So here, for example, you see that – oh, this is actually not the best example.

But there's a distinct difference between the way the thigh angles and the shin.

It's not just straight. It's like that has an angle and that has an angle.

And I think because of his pose right there, it doesn't look quite the way that it usually does here.

Let's see if we can have a different example of it somewhere.

You might see it a little bit here, the way that this one angles.

It's kind of like there's a big thigh that comes out there,

and then the interpolated angle would be like from that point to there.

It actually goes inwards, and that's kind of what I'm thinking about.

But I might have exaggerated a little bit too much here.

But then this one could actually come out a little bit like that.

So you notice I'm blocking in things that I know will be a certain angle in the future.

So I can use these primitive shapes for that, just in a very simple state.

I can see I got the middle right there, so that's probably okay.

Like that. Cool.

Then I'm going to create another pair of cylinders here.

And I could use that for the shoulders here.

And it's important to not put the shoulders like that.

The shoulders are more hanging here because there's a clavicle and a scapula that's kind of attaching itself here.

I'm going to use that.

Oh, actually, this doesn't have a mirror.

We're going to put a mirror on it across this one.

Like that.

And just make sure that it's kind of like a half interpretation of the bone and something else.

That's fine.

And then we have the lower arm here.

Putting that in like that.

And I think, actually, we want to pose it a little bit more in an A-pose, because we are going to be rigging this one.

So it just makes sense to already start thinking in those terms.

So I'm going to give him a little bit of space there.

You could also do a T-pose, but I think A-pose is a bit more what I was kind of imagining.

Usually gives a bit nicer deformations, in my opinion.

Okay, cool.

That's pretty good.

Then I want some stuff for the feet here.

So I'm going to create a cube and place that in like so.

And just a very simple kind of shape here.

Nothing crazy at all.

And I also want a mirror for that one.

Oh, the wrong one.

Mirror for the pelvis there.

Nice.

And then I got that going on.

And I might use these feet just to create some scapula.

You know, I'll quite often do that where I just take something, a form, and then I'm like,

you know what, that form could actually work quite well as this other form.

And the scapula are the shoulder blades, of course.

Just use that.

And then I have them there as some kind of a form like that.

That seems pretty good, I think.

Just checking from every angle here.

That seems nice.

And then I could do a similar thing with the clavicles.

That almost feels like that's something that I don't want to miss.

The clavicles are interesting because they actually have a bend on them.

If we see here on the reference here, you can kind of see that they go a little bit straight there,

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and then they have a different angle than an angle like that.

So it's like this two-stage thing.

And it looks kind of different for different people, but I always think of it as like two segments,

like that segment and that segment.

And the segment on top here is a bit more straight.

It's kind of a bit more flat.

And then this one is the bendy bit.

That's kind of how I see them.

But to simplify right now, I'm going to maybe just do like that,

and then scale in like that.

Something like that, maybe.

And then have this thing coming down.

Yeah, something.

Then I have it placed.

It's not the final.

Cool.

And then I could actually...

I think I'm going to add a spine.

So I'm going to grab it up here.

And I could do smaller resolutions for all the stuff, but it's really not necessary right now.

And I can see already that my proportions are not exactly what I want.

And the good thing about this is that I'm focusing on the really big picture here.

And if I jumped into sculpting straight away,

sometimes you just fall into the trap of just doing details

instead of focusing on the really big things.

And this kind of forces me to think about the proportions of everything

and not fall into that trap of doing details.

And once you've done lots of details, then suddenly you have to correct really big things.

It becomes an issue.

And what I'm seeing right now is that my character is kind of leaning backwards a little bit too much.

Like the chest part here, I wish that this was a bit further back.

So I'm going to take this here and just pull it forward a little bit.

And then take the spine here.

Pull that in.

Pull that in.

And the head here.

Something like that.

Yeah, that feels a little bit more natural.

That's exactly what I wanted.

Cool.

And then we just need to put in some hands here.

And for hands, I think I'm just going to be using a cube and stuff like that.

And his hands might actually be a little bit too long now that I'm looking at it.

Like his overall arm length might be quite long.

It's okay because it's a stylized character.

So we can work with it.

But we just got to figure out if that's what we want.

But we can correct the stuff a little bit.

But I would like to get the overall...

They're quite long, which I also tend to make long arms.

So that's not a surprise to me.

But let's see here.

I'm just going to bring that in a little bit.

And bring that in a little bit.

Something along those lines.

Then I can mirror that over to the other side like so.

Okay.

That's not too bad.

Cool.

So this is kind of our block out here.

I'm going to put this into a new group here just called block out.

This is our base block out.

A really rough block out for our character.

And this is all moving towards the sculpting stage.

So it might seem a little bit time wasted.

Because we could have maybe sculpted this out faster.

But I just find that helps.

Your mileage may vary.

The next thing I'm going to do is I'm going to do a sculpt pass.

Not a sculpt pass, but a muscle pass.

So we're going to be making some muscle kind of shapes.

And then we're going to stretch those around the body.

And kind of create the bigger muscle groupings.

It's not going to be every muscle.

But definitely some of the bigger stuff.

And this is where your reference for the muscle stuff can be super helpful.

We're going to put one in for the pectoral, for example.

One for the deltoids and the trapezius.

The big kind of back muscle that's sitting there.

This one that we see kind of bulging out right there.

We're going to put that stuff in.

And that's going to make the sculpting process go really fast afterwards.

If we can nail that.

And for this, it can be kind of helpful having random colors on.

Just to see everything a little bit more clearly.

And I'm going to create a cube.

And then I'm going to put on subdivision surface modifier.

And I'm going to sculpt out the muscle shape using this one.

So the first muscle shape I'm going to do here is going to be the trapezius, I think.

So that kind of has the shape.

That is kind of an interesting shape.

It kind of becomes this big thing like this.

And then I'm going to mirror this over.

There.

And then I will move this in here.

Maybe we can give it a bit more resolution here and there.

Yeah, I like that.

Okay, so I want this one to be somewhere.

So I'm going to turn on soft selection on O there.

And just start putting this stuff where it needs to be.

And it's kind of attaching at the base of the neck.

And then it lies on top of the scapula here.

Let's see here, a bit thinner.

Kind of sits somewhere like this.

And I'm just putting it really roughly.

That's my goal. It's just to get it there.

And then I'm going to add edge loops if I need edge loops to further sculpt it into the right place.

Something like that.

And let's see here.

Delete an edge loop there.

Just to see.

Yeah, that kind of fits into that role.

And it would need to be adjusted proportionally.

His neck would not be this broad. It would probably be a bit thinner.

But it's kind of sitting where I want it to sit.

Yeah, that actually looks pretty good.

That's the trapezius there.

Then I want another one.

And we're going to do the same thing here.

Maybe even give it a preemptive subdivision there.

And then stretch this out.

And this one is going to become our chest muscle here, I think.

So let's try that.

Let's put it like here.

And attach it to the arm bone.

Like that.

Give it a mirror.

To the side.

And it's okay if it intersects with the base mesh.

That's not the most...

That doesn't really matter so much.

What we want is just the overall look of the shape here.

And here we can actually create this little intersection.

Or this little space in here, which is a part of it.

Just check out your reference and see how you can block this.

And you can see how you're already getting quite a lot of definition.

In terms of muscle definition.

It's coming into itself quite naturally.

And if you're just careful with attaching your muscles the right places.

So I'm going to attach this there.

Get that in there.

Get that in there.

Get that in there.

That seems to work out.

Okay, let's see here.

Like that.

Yeah, I think that works out pretty good.

Then I could just duplicate this one maybe.

And then use that.

Actually, I'm going to delete this here.

Go into this one and duplicate this one in there.

Soft selection.

And then use that as the deltoid also.

Use that as a deltoid muscle.

Like that.

I'm going to turn on connected only.

So if I use soft selection, it will only affect what is connected here.

Not the other muscles around.

Yeah, something along these lines.

And if it gets a little bit unruly, you could use the soft smoothness tool here.

Just to smooth this out.

And then you can continue from there on.

I don't want huge massive deltoids.

I think rather like longer.

Still strong ones, but not a lot of bulk.

Something like that.

And this one could actually have another one.

If you take a look at some of the reference here.

Then we kind of get these.

Let's see where we have that.

It's this deltoid actually.

You can see a tiny bit of a shadow there.

It actually crawls all the way up here.

And attaches itself to the underside of the scapula as well.

So I want to get that in as well.

By simply just like duplicating this one I think.

And putting it in there.

Kind of like that.

And then we can sculpt it in a little bit there.

And the other one will kind of attach itself.

There's actually three heads.

We could also squeeze this one in.

And then maybe not that one, but the other one.

Bring it to the front here.

Scale it that way.

And then you kind of got this thing going on a little bit.

Where now we've got these three heads.

Like that.

And that's already creating those separations.

That the muscle might have by itself.

They will look more right just from the get-go.

Like when we get into sculpting.

Very cool.

Okay.

Nice.

Then I think I'm going to grab another one.

To create kind of these big back muscles.

I might be able just to reuse these ones.

I think I'm going to try that.

So I'm going to create a back muscle like this here.

And this is the latissimus dorsi.

And it also needs some shaping here.

Like that.

Like that, like that.

And then it kind of comes up like this here.

Yeah, I think this actually might be working just fine.

But then we don't need this so much.

So maybe I can delete this here.

And then just close this one off.

And once again, if it's like a bit too unruly.

Then I could use the smooth tool here.

And just like bring all the stuff a little bit closer together.

And then I get that kind of flexibility again.

Because the topology just fixed itself out a little bit.

Something along those lines here.

Nice.

Oh, this one is not in the middle I see.

So we're just going to move that one back into the middle there.

There we go.

Yeah, something like that.

And it'll probably sit itself technically underneath here.

And then kind of wrapping the scapula a little bit.

But not as much here.

Maybe something like that.

Because there's actually supposed to be space for some muscles in there.

Which we could go ahead and create that as well.

So I'll create these with some.

Just taking these, just stretching them out.

Like that.

And then placing these ones in here.

So it's a very like, know your anatomy, check out some reference.

It's also a really good way of understanding your anatomy.

Like being able to place the muscle groupings like this.

I think it really helps me at least to confirm that I actually know what I'm going to be sculpting eventually.

So you can also think of it like that.

It's a bit more like doing an echo shape, those kind of anatomical models.

So it's quite good.

And it makes sure that I'm not just surface treating.

You know, we're just sculpting on a muscle without being able to connect them and relate them to the proper places.

That kind of stuff.

Cool, so we got that going on.

And then I will need probably, let's see what we want to do.

We could do the serratus here.

But I think that maybe this one could also be a little bit further down here.

Yeah, for the teres major and the teres minor.

That sounds good.

I'll do the back actually first.

So I'll do the glutes, so the ass muscles.

I think I'm going to do a new one for that one.

Subdivision surface.

Let's see here.

And that's pretty good.

Do a subdivision.

And then we can bring that in.

Like that.

Do a mirror here.

Bring in the glutes.

Let's see.

Something like that.

Kind of.

The glutes are actually quite large.

You know, just on their own.

Obviously some people have larger glutes.

But they're quite large.

They're quite a large muscle.

It's the muscle that helps you stand upright.

It's a very human muscle.

And so that's kind of funny.

That it helps you stand up, but it's also what makes it nice to sit down.

Something to think about.

There's probably some philosophy in there.

So that's the glutes we got there.

And that is actually.

Yeah, I think that works out pretty well.

Like that.

The legs might be a little bit short.

We'll figure that out once I get everything together.

But I'm already starting to feel like there's some proportional things that would be good to change.

But that's okay.

Then I think I'm going to use the glute here.

Wrong way.

I want to rotate it.

And then I'm going to use that as a grouping of quads.

Just putting it in like this kind of.

Then I can adjust them a little bit.

Like that.

That's pretty good.

I also have this other grouping of muscles that sits in here.

And I usually just take these and rotate them until they kind of fit what I want in terms of like shape.

I don't want to make it perfect at all.

I'm just saying, okay, I want that mass to be there somehow.

There's another set of muscles that sit in here.

Like that.

And I understand that this maybe can be a little bit of a confusing process if you don't know exactly where the muscles are attaching.

But I recommend that you figure that out.

That's an important part of it.

It's like how do they attach different places.

Let's see here.

Maybe I can adjust this in a little bit.

I get this to kind of just connect there.

Cool.

Then maybe I can use these glutes to...

I'm going to recenter the origin here.

Like that.

I'm going to make sure that they mirror across.

I can use these as calves.

Or even do that.

Like that.

Then I have some idea of some calves here.

Let's see.

And usually they are higher on the outside.

If you're looking at calves like this, then that's kind of the calves peeking out from behind.

It's higher on the outside and lower on the inside.

That's kind of what I'm trying to mimic here a little bit.

The form is a little bit higher there and a bit lower over here.

Not amazingly clear, but that's kind of the idea here.

Something along those lines.

I'm just going to do a quick test with just this on.

It's starting to feel kind of human, especially when you're seeing it from further away.

You're feeling those forms, the overlaps of muscles already.

That's kind of what I'm going for.

I'm putting in the critical stuff for me.

That's not stuff like the feet.

That's not really super critical.

The feet are also pointing straight forward, which is not super natural.

But it's easier for rigging and placing the bones and stuff.

That's why they are like that.

Okay, cool.

Then I need the gut and stuff like that.

Let us try to put that in.

I think I'm going to grab this pectoral muscle here.

And use that for the abdominal muscles here on the side.

I can put them in like that kind of.

And then they can be in this situation.

There.

I just want to make sure that I got the volume in the way that it suits itself.

Yeah, I think that actually works pretty well.

I can do something similar for the abs here.

I'm just going to simplify them with some smoothing here.

Like that.

Getting them on the front here like that.

And for the abs, I'm just going to use kind of like a band.

So it's going to be kind of like this.

A strip.

Maybe like a band strip like this.

Yeah, something like that.

I might bring this up a little bit more.

Let's see here.

Like that.

Like that.

So that is bulging out quite a lot.

But that's also not super unrealistic.

That's pretty common.

But I could also raise this up just to indicate that curvature in the rib cage there.

That might be a nice thing to keep in mind when everything gets merged together.

Just to have a little bit of that definition there.

That could definitely be useful.

Nice, nice, nice.

And this could actually come even further down.

And this is going to kind of create that natural athletic fold that you see right here.

So that will be something for reference right there.

So this kind of shape there.

So that's kind of the abs and the side stuff.

And the pelvic region coming together and creating this almost cut between leg area and torso.

So that's the stuff that's going to happen here.

Okay.

There's definitely some other muscle groupings here and there that would be good to put in.

Right now I'm just looking for spaces that will cause trouble.

I could put something in here just to have a little bit less of an area.

So I think I'm going to maybe take this one and just put this stuff in here.

Just so I have some kind of muscle-ish definition right there.

Yeah, that seems pretty good.

And then I need these two to not overlap as much.

Like that.

Seems pretty good.

And then these neck muscles here.

There's the sternomastoid glide here.

They sit here.

And then let's see here.

Connect these here.

And they can actually connect probably around there or something.

And, you know, I think the whole head area needs to be adjusted.

It's such a specific area and how it looks that probably this is not doing it the best of justice.

But it's still good to block it out.

Like that.

Okay.

And then there's a lot of mass in here lost.

If we start to merge all this stuff here, there'll just be tons of gaps here.

And that would actually cause some trouble.

So I think that I'm going to take this mass here from the calves and just put that in as well.

Just to fill the area out a little bit.

And that's where this method becomes a little bit, you know, unorthodox.

Because you get some errors like that or some potentially annoying bits like that.

But what I gain is that I gain a really good sense for where my muscle groups are.

And I keep those things in mind.

And that's what I want, right?

That's why I'm doing it.

And stuff like that.

Okay.

Not too bad.

Not too bad.

Still think that my proportions are a little bit short-legged in comparison to the concept.

But I think we can solve that once we merge everything.

We can still change the proportions a lot here.

Okay.

Then I think we just need to put in some bicep stuff.

We can put that in like...

Yeah, probably just like that.

And then in a tricep.

So it's going to be a little bit more bulky.

That's maybe the wrong one to use for that.

Actually, calf muscle here could work.

And just squeezing that out.

Like so, like so.

Cool.

Got that thing placed.

Then the one other muscle to potentially place is the one that kind of cuts here.

So that'll look a little bit like this here.

So it's called the brachioradialis, I think.

And it's the muscle that sits right here.

It kind of blends the upper arm and the lower arm together.

And I think having that as a very clear separator is usually a good thing.

Like that.

Yeah, I mean, it doesn't have to be much bigger right now.

So that's pretty good.

Okay.

This is looking pretty good.

I think that's actually all I need for the blockout.

I have a bunch of intersections.

So that's looking pretty good.

And that means we can move on to the next stage, which is the actual sculpting phase.

So that's it for this chapter.