28mm chunky or slim proportions?

[westwaller]

Hmm... Possibly. It depends on the look you want, and the age of your female. It is hard to tell without it being more finished really

[Alan maguire]

@ westwaller   . Yeah maybe when her other arm is done it might balance things
 out 

[Connectamabob]

It sort of works for an older or middle aged "matronly" woman. Adding a little bit more thickness to the lower body will balance it out (to complete the look, not make her look younger/slimmer): right now her lower body looks too small compared to the the upper body and head (this is also causing her arm to look too long relative to her legs).

Technically the head is too big. It's as big as the male heads including beards right now. If you mentally remove the beards, you'll see that the men's heads are actually smaller.

Get a proportion chart, and a small ruler so you can actually check proportions directly instead of eyeballing and asking people if it looks OK. Don't sculpt things like clothes and beards in the same go as the underlying body. Sculpt the body first, nude and bald, then add clothes and beards and hair and such as layers on top. If your underlying "naked" bodies are consistent and well proportioned, then the finished figures will be too. Sculpting the the whole final thing as a single "block" will mix you up if you don't have your "sculpting eyes" yet.

A lot of rookie sculptors start out trying to sculpt the whole figure in one layer like this, and it's symptomatic of the reason why you still see so many awkward sculpts. The people who make those figures never tried to study proportion systematically, always relied solely on their eyes alone, so never actually developed an eye for proportion. Same is true for other aspects, like kinesiology for good posing. They avoided the vast body of formal techniques and information that exists specifically to make advanced skill accumulation faster and easier, because they though it seemed like too much faff compared to jumping in blind. Consequentially they end up trying to duplicate centuries (millennia, if you think of it in man-hours) worth of cumulative advancement and discovery all by themselves.. which predictably can't get them very far within their lifetime.

And I know this will be controversial, but it doesn't help that people on hobby boards like these will be much, much more lenient/flattering to a friend on the forum than they would be to an anonymous manufacturer. They want to encourage you, and they may be applying a "how does this look... for an amateur" filter to their criticism, so often they will tell you (as they do each other) that your stuff is much better than it technically is. Criticism, legit or otherwise, will often inspire drowning-out choruses of " it looks fine/great" comments by people who want to soften any potential discouraging influence. For this reason, it is better to go to sites for pros or semi-pros for your learning and critique than gaming or other hobby sites.

[Alan maguire]

@ Connectamabob

Thank you, thats one hell of a reply!, very very usefull and informitive   

Thanks!  

[former user]

And I know this will be controversial, but it doesn't help that people on hobby boards like these will be much, much more lenient/flattering to a friend on the forum than they would be to an anonymous manufacturer. They want to encourage you, and they may be applying a "how does this look... for an amateur" filter to their criticism, so often they will tell you (as they do each other) that your stuff is much better than it technically is. Criticism, legit or otherwise, will often inspire drowning-out choruses of " it looks fine/great" comments by people who want to soften any potential discouraging influence.

so true....

[Cubs]

And I know this will be controversial, but it doesn't help that people on hobby boards like these will be much, much more lenient/flattering to a friend on the forum than they would be to an anonymous manufacturer.

Hats off to you for that piece of uncomfortable truth. Very true and absolutely essential to get BRUTALLY honest feedback if you're going to hoping for commercial success as well as a general thumbs-up from people who are going to be naturally supportive. The important thing is to keep striving to get it right and not give up because you suffer the odd knockback.

[Captain Blood]

It's a tricky area for sure. Some people are fairly indiscriminate in their praise. But there's a fine line between giving encouragement and giving feedback which is well-intentioned but dishonest. But then everyone has their own, different standards of what good looks like. As a generally polite and constructive forum, this certainly isn't a place for brutal public criticism of other people's efforts. If I don't think something's very good, I simply don't comment. I imagine a lot of people do the same.

And I know this will be controversial, but it doesn't help that people on hobby boards like these will be much, much more lenient/flattering to a friend on the forum than they would be to an anonymous manufacturer.

It is a bit different with manufacturers though. If someone is showing something in the hope they might sell it to me, I think it's more reasonable to give honest feedback about their offering. It's not the same as a hobby painter or gamer sharing their stuff for pleasure, not for profit

I guess the main thing with all forms of criticism is to try and keep it constructive.   

[Prof.Witchheimer]

I guess the main thing with all forms of criticism is to try and keep it constructive.   

Seconded.

[Alan maguire]

Ive ordered some ebob skellies and going to use them as i recently been making my own armatures and it can be a pain to keep them all exactly the same height.

 Hopfully ebobs skellies will help with keeping the miniatures consistant.

Although all humans are different heights and builds im sure you can still do this with ebobs armatures.