Lesson 5 - Head Construction for animals with boxier heads

2:07 PM, Sunday June 18th 2023

I'm trying to approach animal construction method as explained in 'how to approach head construction'. This works well for animals that have muzzles that don't dominate the entire cranial ball - wolf, tiger, dog, bear, etc. However, for horse, donkey, moose, oryx, etc., the method is much harder to employ. Furthermore, the demos for these seem to stray from this method. The horse head demo somewhat follows the method, but the moose/donkey/oryx demos don't. That being said, can I just use whichever approach makes the most sense for me? Or should I really try to follow the steps in 'how to approach head construction', even if the demos stray from them?

0 users agree
6:14 PM, Sunday June 18th 2023

Ultimately everything we're doing throughout this course is learning how to navigate spatial problems, and the techniques we use are less about reproducing a particular structure perfectly, and more about how those steps influence the way in which our brains are rewired through the process. This demo is indeed the kind of approach you'll want to use regardless of the variation in the head structure, simply because it helps develop that understanding of spatial reasoning more effectively. This is an approach we've worked up to gradually, so older demos don't reflect it as well as they could - but that's something that will gradually be addressed as we continue overhauling the video/demo content.

In the meantime, this demonstration of the same approach being employed on a particularly irregular rhino head structure shows how it can be applied regardless of significant variations in the structure. It's all about building up structures one new form at a time, and making use of intermediary steps along the way.

12:47 PM, Monday June 19th 2023

Thank you for the information!

The recommendation below is an advertisement. Most of the links here are part of Amazon's affiliate program (unless otherwise stated), which helps support this website. It's also more than that - it's a hand-picked recommendation of something I've used myself. If you're interested, here is a full list.
PureRef

PureRef

This is another one of those things that aren't sold through Amazon, so I don't get a commission on it - but it's just too good to leave out. PureRef is a fantastic piece of software that is both Windows and Mac compatible. It's used for collecting reference and compiling them into a moodboard. You can move them around freely, have them automatically arranged, zoom in/out and even scale/flip/rotate images as you please. If needed, you can also add little text notes.

When starting on a project, I'll often open it up and start dragging reference images off the internet onto the board. When I'm done, I'll save out a '.pur' file, which embeds all the images. They can get pretty big, but are way more convenient than hauling around folders full of separate images.

Did I mention you can get it for free? The developer allows you to pay whatever amount you want for it. They recommend $5, but they'll allow you to take it for nothing. Really though, with software this versatile and polished, you really should throw them a few bucks if you pick it up. It's more than worth it.

This website uses cookies. You can read more about what we do with them, read our privacy policy.