3d modeling advice needed.

Jurgen

Hi :)
I am quite new to 3d as I am mostly a 2d artist.

Here is a sculpt I did in Blender:

and here is the reference I used:


I've been thinking that I need to approach the 2d design part more like this:

If I design with basic geometry in mind, it should be easier to translate to 3d.

I am wondering if anyone has any advice on how I can improve translating 3d from a 2d image?

Jurgen

Here is another sculpt I did today :)


Critique and or comments welcome.

Elyaradine

It looks like you dive into detail too early, and lose control of your forms. The planar drawing that you say your 2D design should be is what your 3D should do first too. Clear planes, clear silhouette (not just from the front, but all around), clear structure and flow. When that's down, detail is icing. Without it, you just end up fighting blobby mush.

CGVega

hi @jurgen

I've been playing around a bit with sculpting. If you are looking at free tools, I'd recommend SCULPTRIS over Blender's sculpting (for now). It's by the same folks who make Z-brush (or they bought the sculptris company, sumpm like that). Far more intuitive. Feels more like a ball of clay you're working with.

You can export an OBJ from there to put into blender. It also has a texture paint tool, but it's not that great. things tend to overlap and whatnot.

you can get it here, for the low low price of "please fill in your email address":
http://pixologic.com/sculptris/

some of my dabblings:

CGVega

sorry, I read your question a bit better now, but I figure sculptris is a good too, so I left the post.

You can use background images in blender to import and "line up" your 2D sketch so you can do a tracing of sorts. And you can assign a view (front, side, stop) to an image, as long as you are in orthographic view (by pressing [5] on your keypad.) The top left of your 3D view will indicate persp or ortho.

The toolbox on the right of your 3D view (which you can make appear or disappear by pressing [n]) - if you scroll down a bit, you'll see a tick box called "Background images" - from there you can import and assign a view, and scale/move appropriately.
more info:

Jurgen

@Elyaradine, thanx for the feedback :) I'll be sure to implement what you have said :) Yeah, I think the construction of it is more important at first. In stages, not getting over-excited about what the model could be, working in phases and planning it out is also important.

@CGVega, Great, thanx for your feedback as well :) Yeah getting to know the keyboard-shortcuts is very useful.Awesome. Btw, I like the monster sculpt you did :)