Alisa Seliverstova prepared a great guide for CG artists who would like to practice speed sculpting and talked about the way it helps to develop skills.
Hi everyone! My name is Alisa, I am 24. I like to identify myself as a 3D artist. The first time the crazy idea like that came to me 4 years ago, when I got acquainted with ZBrush, my first 3D application. Since then I have learned a lot of things and now I create 3D models for games (high poly and low poly). But the understanding of the subject of this article came to me way back in the school days.
Let’s get started, step by step.
Dealing with mathematics sometimes was hard for me in high school. But year by year, I started to notice one funny thing: new problems remained hard and even scary, while the problems of the previous years became feasible. After graduation, I sighed with relief, but later the destiny led me to the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics. And here we go again…
The maths classes began from the very first day, but this time maths was split into many subjects which existence I had been unaware of. During the first exams, I felt how much I miss the tests we had in school. What could be easier? I had four more years of studying ahead… But in the final year, I smiled at the memories of the first days. Probably, if I had applied for a Master’s degree the situation would have repeated again. It did repeat but in another sphere. Fortunately, by that time I got interested in the world of 3D.
Let’s say you practice something and you are doing your best but still find yourself unhappy with the result. You want to learn faster and be more productive. Don’t blame yourself, it is how our brain works. Today people don’t need to struggle for their survival any more: they don’t think how to keep warm in winter, how to escape from an animal, where to find the food. Life has become much calmer. If you are a common man, your brain has already got used to it. The brain works to keep your activity at the necessary level, it supports basic human needs, maintains safety, helps to do what you usually do for a living. The brain won’t be very productive for no special reason. So, what do we do if the brain is sleeping?
Generally speaking, if the brain is sleeping, we need to wake it up.
Nothing works here better than stress (working under pressure) or crisis (the situation that requires re-evaluation of the actions or behavioral pattern). Remember my story about maths? Let’s analyze it:
These observations made me think that stress and crisis disclosure our alternate supply sources and abilities. History knows many cases when people survived under extreme conditions due to this ability. A good example will be the story of Aron Lee Ralston, an alpinist who spent 5 days and 7 hours in a canyon with his right hand stuck under a boulder. He had to amputate his hand himself to escape from the stone slavery and to cover many miles under the strong sun, seeking aid.
Of course, we can’t prepare for all possible emergencies in every area of life. But if we study outside the comfort zone we can achieve the best possible result in routine tasks at work.
Being a 3D sculptor, from now, I’ll talk about studies called SpeedSculpts. This approach could also be applied to the modeling, drawing and other activities.
What is a SpeedSculpt? It is a stressful situation when an artist is given a task to create and render a high poly model within a short time, much shorter than he would have for the same task at work.
What can be sped up during the SpeedSculpt?
What can be improved during the SpeedSculpt?
Time. The time for the SpeedSculpt must be limited according to the things you are going to speed up.
For example:
Choosing the timing, don’t forget to take into account what you are going to do, your individual traits and the current skill.
Frequency. Train regularly, don’t put it off and don’t practice too often. The most important thing is to find a balance between mental activity and the right pace of development, leading to the desired result.
To benefit from our studies, we should critically evaluate our current skills and raise the bar to a higher level.
It DOESN’T work like this:
Now I know the base principles of physics. My aim is to build the Hadron Collider and discover a new type of quarks within a year. For sure, it is highly unlikely that I can really do it, but at least I’ll get a Ph.D. in Physics.
It DOES work like this:
Now I can’t cook at all. I have a chocolate cake recipe and I am going to make a tasty dessert for supper. I failed to cook it on the first attempt, but I learned how to make biscuit dough and that the red bowl contains salt instead of sugar.
Let’s suppose that now you can sculpt a portrait within 4 working days. You want to do it within 2 days. Give yourself 1 working day for the SpeedSculpt and try to make the sculpt as close to the photo as possible.
But this challenge is not about sculpting the portrait against the clock. The main idea is to put yourself into the tough conditions to develop the eye and speed. It doesn’t mean that you have to finish the models. Don’t get upset about making one more portrait without perfect results. It is a study. Do it as-is and send the result to the archive. Next time you’ll do it better.
Organize SpeedSculpts 4-6 times per month. Devote the rest of the available time to other types of training like diligent sculpting of the details from the photo references. Do it regularly, practice makes perfect. However, if you aren’t able to sculpt a life-like portrait and not good at head anatomy, the portraying won’t give any results. Instead, you’ll be repeating the mistakes. Lower the bar from “portraying” to the “anatomically correct head”. Do you best and don’t forget that what you are doing is studying. Alternate the SpeedSculpts with studying anatomy by books or video tutorials.
Doing SpeedSculpts regularly, you will definitely…
Improper use of any good tool brings more harm than profit. SpeedSculpts are not an exception.
I have been participating in SpeedSculpts since I started to learn sculpting. I took part in different mini-challenges. Sometimes I even won them! I love it so much that I can spend 5-8 hours seating in front of the computer. Usually, after such races, I sleep like a log. Mostly, I take part in speed sculpting of character busts. My next aim is to sculpt full characters within 6-8 hours. I hope I’ll reach this level soon. For the recent years, I hold SpeedSculpts in our community CG Allies. Sometimes I have to resist the desire to participate – it could take all day when I don’t have too much spare time.
Here are some examples of my SpeedSculpts:
SpeedSculpts and SpeedPaints of my colleagues:
Good luck with your studies! Thank you for your attention!