Sculpting an Ear in Blender 2.80RC
How Do You Make an Ear, Do You Play It by Ear?
As a 3D artist, I often like to challenge myself by figuring out how to do things I haven't done yet, without watching a tutorial on how to do it. Oftentimes, when I watch a tutorial in Youtube, it's only to watch a demonstration of how to use certain tools or features in the software I use.
When it comes to the creative or "art part" of my job, or something that requires delving deep into my traditional art background, I find that I have everything I need in my head. And that's from all of my four decades of experience creating art and doing it by figuring things out on my own.
It's often only the technical aspects that I have to do some research on. But, that's until I have to create something that involves knowledge of human anatomy. It's a subject that straddles the line that puts it between art and science. It's an endeavor an artist cannot deal with, without having to refer to some amount of technical information, from books or the Internet, or even our own bodies.
The human ear is no exception. And, to create one, I had to look at pictures of it first. I did not look at Youtube videos of how to do it, so as not to influence me in any way. I sculpted it the same way I would draw it, doing it from memory and figuring out the steps along the way, but with occasional glances at the reference image of the previous sculpt. I "played it by ear", so to speak.
In the two pictures above are two sculpts I made of an ear. The first is actually the result of a second attempt to sculpt one and record a timelapse video it. The picture below is the result of my first sculpt, but one I forgot to record, that eventually became the reference image which I based my second attempt on.
You can see the obvious differences in quality between the two, as the first sculpt shows a cleaner, smoother surface compared to the roughness of the second. And both ears are partly based on my own, and another one I modeled in Blender back in 2016, which happens to be the ear of a girl I dated. See the picture below.
Timelapse Video
In this video I demonstrate one of the ways one can sculpt an ear. This shows how I would do it for sculpting practice or for quick concept art creation. For production work, I would do it differently, by creating a base model similar to the one in the third picture above. Then, I would attach it to the head, and begin sculpting the details in.
More Head Shots!
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This is the first complete head I've done in Blender. I had to stop working on the other one I blogged about previously, because I had been asked to concentrate more on creating more "normal-looking" humans for now, instead of monster-type creatures or characters. This poor head will be my guinea pig for my facial anatomy sculpt studies of the various ethnic groups, and ages. The same will be done on a female head, which I have yet to sculpt.
Ok, that's all for now. You will see more sculpting and 3D modeling sessions soon. So stay tuned for them, and also for the next parts of the blog about the green turtle I'm sculpting for @jacinta.sevilla.
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eSteem Surfer, Blender, Shotcut, and GIMP.
it's amazing that you can sculpt such a complex looking thing ! even drawing the ear is a difficult task let alone sculpting a 3d model of it ! But you did really well, I think :D Good work, @kryptik.tigrrr3d !!!
Thank you. The job requires, so I do it, not just because I'm being paid, but also because there are junior artists who are learning from me.
But then, all the artists I've worked with in the past and present say that I can mentally visualize 3D better than everyone else in the room.
I guess it's partly due to all those years spent playing combat flight simulator games. Being a virtual fighter pilot can really train your brain to think in 3D like no other human endeavor can.
Or maybe I'm just some kind of freak. LOL!
Your attempts at ears definitely went better than mine! 🤣 I think ears and horns were what I broke Blender’s dynatopo on at the time 😖
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It felt kind of automatic for me, like my hand was on auto-pilot. Being able to draw is really helping me a lot in this endeavor, as well as knowing anatomy, and being a modeler too.
Dynatopo can be real pain in the arse at times. You really need to sit down and plan ahead before you go all beast mode with your sculpting.
I'm trying to figure out a nice workflow for it, then I'll share it here someday. 👍
That’s me, beast mode with the sculpting, planning what’s that 😅 though I could sculpt from a cube (or it’s a ball in 3dC) with no drama, 3dC has issues with thin areas especially across the mirror plane (dorsal spines for a vaporeon were giving me particular issues here, and so did wing membranes in one if my Dragonkin characters), I don’t remember what Blender did or why, just remember a huge mesh tumour forming inside the mesh when I was sculpting horns 🤣 it was at that point I was like yep dynatopo is both awesome and troublesome 🤣
Haven’t had that particular drama with 3dC yet, it just doesn’t seem to like being smooth after a while 🙄
Good luck with the workflow finding! 🙃
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STOPWow so great I really need to try blender i am just a bit affraibd because it looks so complicated
Posted using Partiko iOS
THank you, and yes it is very complicated. I began using it in 2013, and now six years later there are times when I feel like I haven't learned much at all. With serious study, practice, and hard work you will learn it. Don't let your fear stop you.