ZBrush Digital Sculpting Human Anatomy

Hey there!I don't have enough words to describe what this book is! Where should I start? The book is perfectly structured! The way Scott Spencer is explaining is not dumbed down like you see on some learning sources, but in the same time is clear as tear drop. He is not wasting any word, instead he manages to touch upon every aspect you might think of. While reading some chapters, certain questions were poping in my mind, but every and each of them were answered eventually later in the book.The videos are made in the same manor. Clear, on spot, supporting you with everything he can (models, Ztools, reference images, proportions literately drawned by him ready for you to take them into Maya or Zbrush with you while you build your base mesh and many many more).All in all, I must reiterate this, it is the bible you need when you start learning Zbrush and modeling. It is a resource that you will use to start with and, I'm sure, you will get back to later on just to use as a reference to whatever you might sculpt.Now, the DVD issue. I know some people complained about Sybex quality on the DVD... I share your opinion in some way but I found a solution and it worked for me without any problem. Here is what I did: Inserted the DVD, opened the autoplay, clicked on Chapter 1 which opened a window with the files allocated for the given chapter. I selected them and copied in a folder on my hard disk. After this, I did the same with everything. When I was done copying all of them, I extracted the files on every chapter and there it was: good to go and being on my hard there was no waiting time what so ever. I saw some guy complaining about the sound... There is no sound issue! So if you find this problem than it has to do with your codecs (TIP: use VLC player since I find it to have a higher max volume than BsPlayer or Windows Media Player. Usually at 60% in VLC is louder than 100% in BsPlayer.).The last bit, I recommend everything Scott Spencer did. I also got his other 2 books and they are the same. Start with this one since this is the foundation you need in sculpting and than move ahead and continue with the other 2 books. On top of this, if you can find his Zbrush 4 Introduction from Gnomon Workshop you won't regret. I watched it quite late, after I was already quite familiar with the program and it still showed me quite a lot of things I didn't know.The only problem I have? A negative side of what Scott Spencer did? He has only 3 books out... He is only one...P.S: Subjects touched in his books that I could not find in other resources or I couldn't find a decent way to understand them:DISCLAIMER: This is from a personal point of view, and from what I searched so if there are other sources I didn't manage to get to feel free to correct me.1) UV mapping - Character Creation: Advanced Digital Sculpting2) Normal Maps, Displacement Maps, Texture maps and Uv Master in ZBrush - Character Creation: Advanced Digital Sculpting3) Topology and remeshing in Zbrush - ZBrush Digital Sculpting Human Anatomy4) A well structured path from easy to complex when it comes to Anatomy, Body Landmarks and Anatomy terminology in sculpture - ZBrush Digital Sculpting Human Anatomy5) All the proportions across the body you will ever need in humanoid sculptures and even in creature developing - ZBrush Digital Sculpting Human Anatomy6) A logic way of explaining STRUCTURE and why is so important (or in other words, how to avoid a lumpy look when you sculpt) and the other two most important considerations when sculpting: Gesture and Proportion - ZBrush Digital Sculpting Human Anatomy7) Small techniques that are implied in various places but no one is bothering with explaining them in an elaborate manor and even further, demonstrate their utility - ZBrush Digital Sculpting Human AnatomyAnd many many more!I hope you enjoy the book as much as I do! Happy Sculpting!Regards, Dan Mihaila

This is my second Scott Spencer Book. the first - ZBrush Character Creation: Advanced Digital Sculpting,set the standard, and this one exceeded it. The first book really impressed me, this second has blown me away. With both books, the accompanying DVD is worth the price of purchase. it is full of example files, sculpting demos and tutorials.The book is big, thick and heavy. The reason for this is not its text content, It's the very large number of illustrations, all of which are printed in full color.I own both The Atlas of human anatomy, as well as Bridgemans Drawing from life, and this book compares very well with those books. In fact i would recommended this book to any artist studying human anatomy, the instruction and illistration is that good.The real wow factor for me on this book, is it is different from any other computer application text i have ever read. The book is far less about click hear and click there, or dated by just the current version of the software. In fact the vast majority of this book cover the timeless study of the human body. not only that, but its sculptural construction. This helps any artist, where they are using ZBrush, Mudbox, Modo, Blender or even traditional Clay to create characters. This is the first and only book Ive seen address the issue of more classical education for modern technical artists.The only drawback to this book is also its strength. The model created in the book is of a Heroic Male. This model serves well for a good number of applications, but I would have really enjoyed a section on anatomical differences. For example, female, older, obese , and youth.Overall i strongly recommend this book to any artist that wants to learn the figure, no matter what the application. It is one of the few books out there that helps not only with familiarizing yourself with a program, but will help you improve your art as well.

This book appears to be excellent. However I realized as soon as I opened it that I made a serious mistake ordering the Kindle edition. The book is quite dependent on the CD that comes with the paper edition, and there is no web site to separately download the CD files. Thus you pay almost as much as the hard copy and lose much of the functionality.

This book is an excellent follow up to all previous zbrush books. Why?, two reasons...One, it refers to zbrush version 3.5 which has some major changes from previous zbrush versions. But the greatest joy is in following the tutorial of a "realistic hero" character. My lady friend always asks me about all other zbrush books..."why do all the characters look ugly?" the answer is simple. It's far easier to create an alien or an ogre. But now Scott Spencer enables us non academically educated artists to create a somewhat life-like character. This is no easy task, but Mr. Spencer enables even a non artist like myself to do so. I no longer have to create aliens and ogres and can actually create a character that is aesthetic to the layperson's eye! BASIC KNOWLEDGE OF ZBRUSH IS A MUST! So keep that in mind. But once you understand the zbrush interface and you are comfortable with the basic standard, clay, inflate, and flatten brushes, you will love this book. Hopefully, the next version will be of a "life-like" female superhero.THIS BOOK IS A MUST HAVE along with "The Essential" by an author who now advocates mudbox. ZSpheres have come a long way with v.3.5 zspheres2 so he might regret leaving zbrush. BTW...There is no info on zsketching in this new Scott Spencer book, but nevertheless, your skills will grow leaps and bounds as an artist (digital sculpturist) as he does a great job explaining gesture and form as well as detail.