Week 6 - Completed Male Human Body

Week 6 - Completed Male Human Body

This week's task was to turn the ecorche body I have sculpted into a standard male body with skin. Not only have I completed this, but I have also caught up on last week's work, which was to sculpt an ecorche head, and sculpt the skin of the head. The tasks can be seen in the videos and images below:

Human Head Ecorche:

The use of Scott Spencer's Digital Sculpting the Human Anatomy book also helped me tremendously, as it allowed me to use another ZBrush ecorche model as reference. The model was great, but the assistance of other reference images by the 1700's painter, Nicolas Henri Jacob was also needed to accurately portray the musculature structure of the face.
Jacob's paintings can be found here:
http://doyoubelieveinvagic.tumblr.com/post/47138609937/almondseed-traite-complet-de-lanatomie-de

Human Body Ecorche and Skin models:

Bodily Shape:

When designing characters for games or movies, the body of the character is just as important as the face. The most obvious influence on the way the male body appears is the bodily composition of muscle and fat tissue. The way fat is stored and the size of certain muscles can convey very different archetypes.

Fat Deposits:

Men typically store fat in the abdominal area above the waist, unlike women who store it below the waist around the thighs. The reason why fat storage is different in men is due to the hormones Testosterone and Estrogen. Men with lower testosterone and higher estrogen typically store more fat in the chest region. A common way to describe this bodily composition is 'man boobs' - the scientific term being gynecomastia.
Gynecomastia is not only caused by obesity, in fact there are many men who are afflicted by this disorder who have low bodyfat levels. Gynecomastia can also be an unwanted side effect of Anabolic Steroids, as steroids commonly unbalance the natural testosterone and estrogen levels.

Muscle Size:

The amount of muscle a man has on his body is subconsciously taken into account when viewing a male. Generally, the more muscular and lean a man is, the more 'manly' and 'attractive' he appears. However, when a man is considered 'too muscular' by the majority of viewers (for example, Ronnie Coleman), there is generally no attractiveness associated with the person. They might even be seen as 'gross' by a lot of people. 

When designing characters, the amount of muscle a man has is very important when trying to create his demeanor. A 'nerd' archetype would not have huge biceps; he would either be thin and frail, or obese. These two body types would be chosen as it would suggest that the person spends his life sitting in front of a screen doing little or no exercise. The obese nerd archetype might suggest that the character eats junk food, etc..

Likewise, in order to portray a warrior character, one would not choose a skinny bodily composition. A bodily composition with abundant muscle would be chosen - with either very little body fat, or a decent amount of bodyfat. Being muscular and fat at the same time might subconsciously convey the idea that the warrior is strong like a bear, etc...


References

Scott Spencer, (2010), “ZBrush: Digital Sculpting Human Anatomy”. Indianapolis, Wiley Publishing Inc.