Centaur statue

Good news, everyone. I wasn't off by a week this time, so the class topic really was sculpting. Great, I thought, I can finally sculpt the horse I meant to do ages ago. But it wouldn't be my life if everything went as planned, would it? During the live stream I learned that the instructions had changed. Now the homework asked for a human head. Not in any mafia kind of way—we were only meant to sculpt it. Luckily for me, when I expressed sadness over the fact that I wouldn't be able to sculpt the horse, a fellow classmate jumped to my rescue. A human head and a horse? Well, that's a centaur, isn't it?

Who am I to dismiss such a brilliant solution?

The only issue with the topic is that, and let's be honest here, I'm not a very good digital sculptor ("yet", I hope). So it could prove a tad bit challenging. On the other hand, if I succeed it will be several "firsts" at once. First realistic human, animal, and generally a first posed character. (Those of you who remember the professor might recall that he was standing in a nice and neat A-shape.)

Well, not Mr. Centaur, oh no. Not him. Because if there is any constant in my life, it is that I like to make things more difficult for myself. So, of course he has to be rearing. And hold something in his hands. Probably a spear. Or a shield, that would be nice, too. Because that only creates two extra problems: you have to say goodbye to symmetry sculpting (at some point) and you have to push your (in)experience with anatomy to the next level. How lovely.

It's really funny how we all think that we know what common things look like. Take your arm, for example. Pretty easy to sculpt, yes? Alright, now tell me what that same arm looks like when it is holding a spear. Which muscles are contracted, how do they interact together, how far do you need to move your arm to make it look like you are about to throw the spear? Not so easy anymore, huh? 

So I struggled. But I thought I'd be a smart cookie and sculpt things separately, to lower the chance of reaching the deadline without anything to submit. I sculpted the head first. That was good, because I could make use of the symmetry option. Then I opened a new file and started working on the human torso. I linked the head in the torso file so that I could keep some sense of proportion without having to scale it later. 

I sculpted symmetrically for as long as I could. I even made both arms in the A-shape, because I thought I could pose them later with an armature. Ah, how wrong I was. For whatever reason, when I tried to parent the sculpture to the armature with automatic weights I kept getting a mysterious error. Quite common mysterious error by the looks of it, but none of the suggested solutions worked for me. So I had to delete the armature and pose things in edit mode with proportional editing enabled. That was a lot of fun. 

I should have mentioned that at this point I didn't have hands sculpted. I toyed with the idea of reusing professor's hands (as a starting point at least) but I had to abandon it when I realised that the centaur's hands would have to be clenched. And since I couldn't get the armature to work, it would be easier to sculpt them from scratch. 

I normally like sculpting hands. I've heard many people say that they are one of the most difficult body parts to sculpt, but I quite enjoy sculpting them. Or rather— I USED to. These hands became the single most infuriating piece of anything I've ever sculpted. And as a bonus, they still look horrible. Admittedly, somewhat less horrible than their many previous incarnations, but they are generally nothing to be proud of. 

What I am quite proud of, on the other hand (eh...), is the human body. It is hardly anatomically correct, but it should still pass as recognisably male. The horse part of the body is... alright-ish, I guess? One of my major shortcomings as a sculptor is the inability to imagine fine detail. I can eventually mould the large shapes, but then I'm stumped. Which is exactly what happened here. I put some extra flair into the tail, but the body is very... clean. I originally thought that I would do the Dyntopo sculpting in 2.79 and continue in MultiRes in 2.8. But one short excursion into the alpha Blender territory had made me think otherwise. If I press Ctrl+Z to undo and my whole mesh gets hidden, I'd say there are still some areas for improvement. Unless that's somehow a new feature, in which case it will take some getting used to.

It is rendered in 2.8, at least. Well, rendered isn't the right word. I'm using matcap instead of a material, and that doesn't show up in the rendered view (unless I've missed something glaringly obvious). So the centaur's been screenshot in 2.8. Which is pretty lousy considering that I wanted to fully sculpt it in 2.8, but my tester's aura gets really busy whenever I open the alpha version. With all the extra nonsense I commit myself to, I simply wouldn't have any patience left by the end of the week. And I'd need a new computer...

Anyway, next week marks the end of the class and we will be asked to do something extraordinary. Which, as far as suitable topics go, is the worst one anyone can give me. But I'll try to think of something (I'm really, really hoping that the Weekly Challenge gives me some inspiration. Otherwise I might be doomed.) And on that cheerful note, it's time to end. See you next time!