Companion Cavalry - Male Template

For the past 2 weeks I have been modelling and sculpting the male template with correct proportions and human anatomy for me to start adding clothes and details. Having had previous experience in zbrush doing a character sculpt I decided to create the basemesh in 3dsmax rather than using the z-sphere tool. This was so I could control the key forms better and make sure I had enough resolution and edge loops where I needed them in places like the hands and face which can be tricky to sculpt from scratch in zbrush. 

Using the photoshop template I made earlier and some photo reference I blocked out the character, starting with a cube to create the torso and extruding all the limbs from that.

I made sure I had included a lot of the small details like the fingers, ear, nose and toes and get them roughly in the right shape and position to minimise any pain in zbrush so I could focus on sculpting the anatomy on top rather than getting the basic form right.

Here is the final sculpt of the (mostly) anatomically correct human male. Pretty much your standard muscly well built guy but this is what I would imagine from a well trained solider so no need for fancy proportions. I could probably keep going with the anatomy indefinitely to make it 100% realistic but I dont want to be working on it for ever so close enough will do.

Mostly using myself as reference, (probably not quite as toned). The hand was a pain in the arse to do to get all the fingers the right length with nobbly bits so they can bend in the right place. I did forget to put some geometry in between the base of the fingers which has resulted in an ugly crease. Hopefully I can smooth that out in photoshop when I texture map the low res version.

The toes were definitely the hardest part to do because they're so close together and I expect I may have issues normal mapping those which will again need to be smoothed over in photoshop.

The head is a little bit feminine and will need more work though hopefully a bit of stubble will sort that out.

I will most likely continue to tweak a few things because I start poly painting but I need to get a move on with that so I can add clothes. Now that the anatomy is done the hard part is out of the way and I dont have to be quite as accurate with the clothes it should all come together quite fast now. I would like to experiment with several different clothing and armour types to see which one I like the most but I still plan to finish off the first character by november so I will have my work cut out for the next few weeks.

On a side note, i've also grabbed a copy of this book which has loads of really useful historical references of armour and clothes of the companions, as well as descriptions of fighting behaviours and techniques which might come in useful when I start animation.