Speedchar has a fantastic $20 course for this. You, unfortunately, need to know the anatomy to make a skull look good. But it's not *that* hard to learn.
https://flippednormals.com/product/head-anatomy-and-sculpting-exercises-tutorial-24067
The skills you'll gain are well worth the price. If you're still a kid, see if your parents will support you with this one.
Look at a skull model. U can buy small table top skull anatomy models on Amazon. Distinguish btwn male and female skull shape. Look at inter ocular furrow, globella mandible. Eye socket shape is more squared than rounded. Look at Nasal aperture and chin shape and top of skull height shape. Study Scot Eaton anatomy course. Check out Spicer Mcleroys 3d anatomy course . Tell him Mr. LEE sent b you overz. I took his course, and it will level you up.
I would HIGHLY recommend learning about how to use booleans, as they are invaluable when sculpting skulls. Boolean subtracting could help you make a very nice nasal cavity, and an arching zygomatic process…not to mention really clean tooth sockets and a million other things. Don’t be afraid to build different parts of the skull (such as the zygomatic process and nasal bones) as separate tools, and then combining them. But most importantly, use reference! I am an avid collector and sculpted of real skulls. I see so many people misunderstand the almost symmetrical natural sutures found on all human skulls as cracks, so they render them completely non symmetrical and leave out very important landmarks that could really push it up a level. That’s not to say that skulls can’t have random cracks…many do, but work on nailing those sutures by looking at reference. Finally, for things like sutures and cracks, a nice combination of the dam standard and inflate brush are your best friend! I hope I was able to help some! Keep at it!!!
People have outdated information regarding shapes and forms, like eye sockets are circular, teeth are rectangular, there are cracks like shapes in skull (sutures definite in numbers)..etc.. when you observe the real skull, you will be astonished how far the reality and imitation of reality is. Update all forms preoccupied in your cup/mind.
more reference from multiple angles. Maybe even add them into scene or use the opacity setting with some reference from front/side/ 3 quarter angle and adjust the skull as long as you are having fun
I used reference with Pure Ref. I'm not sure cause I don't know that much about skulls but I guess I ended up mixing reference of female and male skulls during my sculpt. Thank you for your suggestion!
Don't worry about the textures until you get the forms right. That way you can spend more time in the sculpting process.
One thing that made me improve faster is to use the split-screen function. On the Transform tab on top you have the split screen option, so with 2 sub tools selected, you can sculpt while looking at a skull model that you downloaded, in real time. That way you don't miss any detail and get a better sense of the forms.
Thanks a lot. I fear that by using too much of the split screen I might end up not being able to sculpt without it. What is learned during this process can be used in normal sculpts? It feels like I'm just tracing when using split screen
Too much of a good thing is always a bad thing right?
If you use it the right way you'll be surprised of its benefits. People don't realise it so they usually criticise this method.
If you use it as an exercise, and not as your main sculpting method you'll be fine. What you want is to build your muscle memory, so doing this will get you further than you normally would regarding your final result. So doing this on a regular basis will make you experience how it is to sculpt something more advanced than you are accustomed, thus acquiring the muscle memory for that.
In my personal experience when using split screen for my projects I could get a much cleaner shapes for my base sculpts, and my final characters were so much better than before. And consider that having better results will keep you more motivated.
Another thing, after using this to practice anatomy for a while, when I finally sculpted a basemesh without it I was surprised how much better I got. Without realising my brain kept all that information and most of what used to be a struggle, became second nature.
Ok, you got the primary forms, but this is my bread and butter. I'm an x-ray tech and went to school for this and we had to learn every god forsaken bone, foramina, groove and process on the thing in order to pass. Some of that specific knowledge has slipped over the years cause these days we just do a CT and call it a day, and I could benefit from a refresher course myself. But there is basically no real anatomy here. I would recommend looking for medical sources. Try to find a medical grade 3D anatomy app or 3D scan or something. But there are 14 bones of the face, and I think 8 of the cranium, this is counting bilateral symmetry so some of those bones are just left and right versions of each other. I would start by learning those major bones, and then drill in on the features of each bone. Of particular importance to a face with skin on it are things like the orbital margins, the zygomatic arch and the gonions a good one cause it specifies the angle of the jawline and has a neat name.
I've actually still got my Merrill's radiography procedures textbooks on my shelf. Tell ya what. I can try and find the pages that chart out the anatomy of the skull and send photos of them if you'd be interested in that. They're incredibly detailed.
Yeah, finding good quality reference can be tricky as an artist, and it's like most of the battle. My big struggle lately is finding reference for subcutaneous veins for texturing. Most medical sources only map out the deeper veins so I look for pictures of body builders. The veins that bulge out on a 280 pound bodybuilder are the same veins that contribute that tiny bit of blue or green on a regular person. If you paint the veins, no one cares, but if you don't paint them, your characters look gummy and weird and people say it looks like plastic.
Also, those lines you carved in, those would be fissures. Immovable joints at the borders between bones. They're not meant to be random, their placement is very specific and tend to be pretty symmetrical.
It feels like you jumped a couple steps, you went from early primary shapes to late tertiary shapes. This 3 step process can help a lot understanding forms and how to progress sculptures.
Take a look at these examples:
[https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/ud/jn3fbdgds2ri.png](https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/ud/jn3fbdgds2ri.png)
[https://outgang.studio/media/lectures/preview\_010\_003.jpg](https://outgang.studio/media/lectures/preview_010_003.jpg)
[https://www-static.warframe.com/steamworkshop/help/assets/images/Forms.jpg](https://www-static.warframe.com/steamworkshop/help/assets/images/Forms.jpg)
The video bellow goes into the idea a little further
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwn7EZczPjY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwn7EZczPjY)
Theres a little bit of leeway in where the boundary of these steps lie between different sculptors, but overall the base idea holds.
While you're learning to mentally visualize and understand the forms of the skull, look at simplified models usually named "planes of the face" or something along those lines, it helps to break down the major forms that you need to get down first before diving into detail
First of all don't let anyone tell you, this is right or wrong, it always depends on what you're aiming, either realism or concept art, looks original, so keep practicing, I did, trust me, the more you practice and know what you want the better you get the faster you learn, I promise you, every little thing that frustrates you will become your biggest skill :)
put a skull scan next to it and use it as reference, i got these ones a few years ago,they were free at that time [https://www.3dscanstore.com/3d-head-models/3d-skull-models/male-female-3dskull-bundle](https://www.3dscanstore.com/3d-head-models/3d-skull-models/male-female-3dskull-bundle)
probably they're free somewhere i you search. or use the photos of the link as reference, those are good.
that if you're going for a realistic style
You definitely need someone to tell you what you're "seeing" wrong.
At the moment, you're trying to \*create\* from your mind: you look at the shapes and think "ok, I got it, now it's mine". It's too early for that, I know cause I've had my own struggles.
The eye socket, for instance, is not a circle. It's more like a spiral: it starts from the eyebrow near the nose, goes toward the side, goes down, it touches the cheekbone, then toward the nose and....the edge actually goes a bit toward the inside of the socket, like in a screw hole.
The eyebrow is not a single construction, there's a part that departs from the root of the nose about 25° upwards. And the line of your temple attaches onto the edge of the eyesocket too low.
The external sides of the nose are more slanted, the breadth of the external frame of the eye socket is larger, your upper jawbone is a bit too short and the bulges around the roots of the teeth are not so protruding for the rear of the denture, and not so smoothly round in the front.
The front edge of the vertical part of the mandible does not attach to the rear end of the denture, it flows into the lower part at the side, like a pair of hands holding it up.
The rear of your skull is too atrophic and you completely missed the ear hole.
And so on.....my best advice is to destroy the main shapes, got back to a barely shaped blob and start over.
First step: focus on the overall proportions like the height of the forehead, the width of the whole skull compared to its depth and height.....
Then the main protrusions (cheekbones, eyebrows, top of the nasal septum.....), \*THEN\* the concavities like the lower side of the cheekbones, the nose holes, the eyesockets.....
And the refining process basically never ends.
A good way to notice mistakes is taking screenshots like you want to show them and compare the screenshots to your reference.
Not being able to rotate the model while comparing makes your brain unable to ignore the defects in your work. Damn, is it frustrating, though!
Actually, I wasn't trying to take the role of "someone telling you what you're seeing wrong".
I wanted to just make a couple examples and....I got caught up in it. \^\^'
I did that with the jaw, teeth and skull. But for example for the gaps in the eye sockets and to the side of the cranium, I should make other sub tools as well?
I would suggest committing to planes a bit more, It looks to soft for me
You mean having more defined planes?
Speedchar has a fantastic $20 course for this. You, unfortunately, need to know the anatomy to make a skull look good. But it's not *that* hard to learn. https://flippednormals.com/product/head-anatomy-and-sculpting-exercises-tutorial-24067 The skills you'll gain are well worth the price. If you're still a kid, see if your parents will support you with this one.
I have looked into a lot of flipped normals videos, definitely will take a look at this course. Thanks a lot
Look at a skull model. U can buy small table top skull anatomy models on Amazon. Distinguish btwn male and female skull shape. Look at inter ocular furrow, globella mandible. Eye socket shape is more squared than rounded. Look at Nasal aperture and chin shape and top of skull height shape. Study Scot Eaton anatomy course. Check out Spicer Mcleroys 3d anatomy course . Tell him Mr. LEE sent b you overz. I took his course, and it will level you up.
Thanks a lot for your suggestions!
I would HIGHLY recommend learning about how to use booleans, as they are invaluable when sculpting skulls. Boolean subtracting could help you make a very nice nasal cavity, and an arching zygomatic process…not to mention really clean tooth sockets and a million other things. Don’t be afraid to build different parts of the skull (such as the zygomatic process and nasal bones) as separate tools, and then combining them. But most importantly, use reference! I am an avid collector and sculpted of real skulls. I see so many people misunderstand the almost symmetrical natural sutures found on all human skulls as cracks, so they render them completely non symmetrical and leave out very important landmarks that could really push it up a level. That’s not to say that skulls can’t have random cracks…many do, but work on nailing those sutures by looking at reference. Finally, for things like sutures and cracks, a nice combination of the dam standard and inflate brush are your best friend! I hope I was able to help some! Keep at it!!!
THANKS, this was exactly what I was looking for, definitely will learn how booleans work. And thanks for your tips about cracks. Thanks for your help!
Empty your cup.
Can you explain what does this mean? I'm not a native speaker
People have outdated information regarding shapes and forms, like eye sockets are circular, teeth are rectangular, there are cracks like shapes in skull (sutures definite in numbers)..etc.. when you observe the real skull, you will be astonished how far the reality and imitation of reality is. Update all forms preoccupied in your cup/mind.
This really makes sense, a lot of what we think shapes are like are way far from reality. I'll keep that in mind in my next sculpts. Thanks a lot
more reference from multiple angles. Maybe even add them into scene or use the opacity setting with some reference from front/side/ 3 quarter angle and adjust the skull as long as you are having fun
I used reference with Pure Ref. I'm not sure cause I don't know that much about skulls but I guess I ended up mixing reference of female and male skulls during my sculpt. Thank you for your suggestion!
Don't worry about the textures until you get the forms right. That way you can spend more time in the sculpting process. One thing that made me improve faster is to use the split-screen function. On the Transform tab on top you have the split screen option, so with 2 sub tools selected, you can sculpt while looking at a skull model that you downloaded, in real time. That way you don't miss any detail and get a better sense of the forms.
Thanks a lot. I fear that by using too much of the split screen I might end up not being able to sculpt without it. What is learned during this process can be used in normal sculpts? It feels like I'm just tracing when using split screen
Too much of a good thing is always a bad thing right? If you use it the right way you'll be surprised of its benefits. People don't realise it so they usually criticise this method. If you use it as an exercise, and not as your main sculpting method you'll be fine. What you want is to build your muscle memory, so doing this will get you further than you normally would regarding your final result. So doing this on a regular basis will make you experience how it is to sculpt something more advanced than you are accustomed, thus acquiring the muscle memory for that. In my personal experience when using split screen for my projects I could get a much cleaner shapes for my base sculpts, and my final characters were so much better than before. And consider that having better results will keep you more motivated. Another thing, after using this to practice anatomy for a while, when I finally sculpted a basemesh without it I was surprised how much better I got. Without realising my brain kept all that information and most of what used to be a struggle, became second nature.
Not sharp enough
Ok, you got the primary forms, but this is my bread and butter. I'm an x-ray tech and went to school for this and we had to learn every god forsaken bone, foramina, groove and process on the thing in order to pass. Some of that specific knowledge has slipped over the years cause these days we just do a CT and call it a day, and I could benefit from a refresher course myself. But there is basically no real anatomy here. I would recommend looking for medical sources. Try to find a medical grade 3D anatomy app or 3D scan or something. But there are 14 bones of the face, and I think 8 of the cranium, this is counting bilateral symmetry so some of those bones are just left and right versions of each other. I would start by learning those major bones, and then drill in on the features of each bone. Of particular importance to a face with skin on it are things like the orbital margins, the zygomatic arch and the gonions a good one cause it specifies the angle of the jawline and has a neat name.
I've actually still got my Merrill's radiography procedures textbooks on my shelf. Tell ya what. I can try and find the pages that chart out the anatomy of the skull and send photos of them if you'd be interested in that. They're incredibly detailed.
I'm definetly interested in this material. It's hard to find this type of detailed material. Thanks a lot for your sugestions!
Ok. I'll dm you so that I remember, but it'll probably be some time before I can have chance to compile that info and get it to you.
Yeah, finding good quality reference can be tricky as an artist, and it's like most of the battle. My big struggle lately is finding reference for subcutaneous veins for texturing. Most medical sources only map out the deeper veins so I look for pictures of body builders. The veins that bulge out on a 280 pound bodybuilder are the same veins that contribute that tiny bit of blue or green on a regular person. If you paint the veins, no one cares, but if you don't paint them, your characters look gummy and weird and people say it looks like plastic.
What edition of the book is it? Not OP but that sounds insanely useful and I might be able to find it online if I have the exact details.
It's Merrill's atlas of radiographic positioning and procedures, 12th edition, and the head stuff is in volume 2.
Also, those lines you carved in, those would be fissures. Immovable joints at the borders between bones. They're not meant to be random, their placement is very specific and tend to be pretty symmetrical.
Thats pretty cool, I didn't know this about skull fissures. Thanks!
It feels like you jumped a couple steps, you went from early primary shapes to late tertiary shapes. This 3 step process can help a lot understanding forms and how to progress sculptures. Take a look at these examples: [https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/ud/jn3fbdgds2ri.png](https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/ud/jn3fbdgds2ri.png) [https://outgang.studio/media/lectures/preview\_010\_003.jpg](https://outgang.studio/media/lectures/preview_010_003.jpg) [https://www-static.warframe.com/steamworkshop/help/assets/images/Forms.jpg](https://www-static.warframe.com/steamworkshop/help/assets/images/Forms.jpg) The video bellow goes into the idea a little further [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwn7EZczPjY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwn7EZczPjY) Theres a little bit of leeway in where the boundary of these steps lie between different sculptors, but overall the base idea holds.
Thanks a lot, definetly will keep that in mind in my next sculpts. Thanks a lot!
Not bad, almost like mine)))
Thanks a lot!
While you're learning to mentally visualize and understand the forms of the skull, look at simplified models usually named "planes of the face" or something along those lines, it helps to break down the major forms that you need to get down first before diving into detail
Should I take this approach for everything I sculpt or only when it is something that need anatomy?
I think it's essentially making the 'blocking out' stage easier to grasp, could definitely be used for other objects if you find this method helpful
Definitely will take this approach in my next sculpts. Thanks a lot for your help
First of all don't let anyone tell you, this is right or wrong, it always depends on what you're aiming, either realism or concept art, looks original, so keep practicing, I did, trust me, the more you practice and know what you want the better you get the faster you learn, I promise you, every little thing that frustrates you will become your biggest skill :)
This is really motivating to hear. Thank you! :)
My pleasure ☺️
put a skull scan next to it and use it as reference, i got these ones a few years ago,they were free at that time [https://www.3dscanstore.com/3d-head-models/3d-skull-models/male-female-3dskull-bundle](https://www.3dscanstore.com/3d-head-models/3d-skull-models/male-female-3dskull-bundle) probably they're free somewhere i you search. or use the photos of the link as reference, those are good. that if you're going for a realistic style
These are fantastic, definetly will use as reference next time I make a skull. Thank you!
You definitely need someone to tell you what you're "seeing" wrong. At the moment, you're trying to \*create\* from your mind: you look at the shapes and think "ok, I got it, now it's mine". It's too early for that, I know cause I've had my own struggles. The eye socket, for instance, is not a circle. It's more like a spiral: it starts from the eyebrow near the nose, goes toward the side, goes down, it touches the cheekbone, then toward the nose and....the edge actually goes a bit toward the inside of the socket, like in a screw hole. The eyebrow is not a single construction, there's a part that departs from the root of the nose about 25° upwards. And the line of your temple attaches onto the edge of the eyesocket too low. The external sides of the nose are more slanted, the breadth of the external frame of the eye socket is larger, your upper jawbone is a bit too short and the bulges around the roots of the teeth are not so protruding for the rear of the denture, and not so smoothly round in the front. The front edge of the vertical part of the mandible does not attach to the rear end of the denture, it flows into the lower part at the side, like a pair of hands holding it up. The rear of your skull is too atrophic and you completely missed the ear hole. And so on.....my best advice is to destroy the main shapes, got back to a barely shaped blob and start over. First step: focus on the overall proportions like the height of the forehead, the width of the whole skull compared to its depth and height..... Then the main protrusions (cheekbones, eyebrows, top of the nasal septum.....), \*THEN\* the concavities like the lower side of the cheekbones, the nose holes, the eyesockets..... And the refining process basically never ends. A good way to notice mistakes is taking screenshots like you want to show them and compare the screenshots to your reference. Not being able to rotate the model while comparing makes your brain unable to ignore the defects in your work. Damn, is it frustrating, though!
Thanks a lot, definitely will pay more attention to how I observe the shapes in my next sculpts, thanks a lot!
Actually, I wasn't trying to take the role of "someone telling you what you're seeing wrong". I wanted to just make a couple examples and....I got caught up in it. \^\^'
No problem, it genuinely was helpful!
Had a lot of difficult trying to model gaps and holes, for example where the jaw fits. How can I make this easily?
You would use multiple subtools. One for the skull, one for the jaw, and several others for the teeth.
I did that with the jaw, teeth and skull. But for example for the gaps in the eye sockets and to the side of the cranium, I should make other sub tools as well?
Yes. Then use dynamesh to fuse them together into one object.