I'm always fascinated when I find really fantastic information about the human figure in completely unexpected place.

Carl Heinrich Stratz was a gynecologist practicing at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century in Germany (though he was born in the Ukraine). He authored several fairly popular and well-regarded books in German on medical and anthropological topics. Although his books are definitely a product of their time and contain overtly racist assumptions that most modern readers would find either comical or offensive, there is also an enormous amount of really great information in his books. Stratz was fascinated with the proportions of the body. Among his corpus of work are many illustrations that break down human proportions based on sex, age, and race/ethnicity

Stratz's books don't appear to have ever been published in any other languages besides German, and his works don't appear to have experienced much popularity outside of Germany. Wikipedia, for example, does not have an English-language page on him, though there is a decent size entry on him on the German version of Wikipedia (english translation).

As a result, finding his books in the English language is practically impossible. But, from what I've read, much of the prose is essentially valueless, filled with outdated science and bunk pseudo-science in the form of "physical anthropology". But, apart from the words, there are literally dozens of illustrations and photographs from his books that have value to figurative artists, including many line drawings showing proportions as well as nude photographs of people of all ages from literally all over the world.

Since Stratz's books were all first published before 1920, they are all in the public domain in virtually every country in the world, meaning his works can freely be copied, republished, or used. Wikimedia Commons has some of his books (Der Körper des Kindes und seine Pflege, Die Fraunkleidung, and Die Körperpflege der Frau), and Google Books has several other of his books available. The Internet Archive also has several of his books digitized.

Here is just a tiny sample of images from his books:

Sorry for just how stagnant the blog has been lately. I just finished writing my second book (well, technically third book, but the second was just a revised edition of my first). That's meant a lot of very long days and almost no sculpting for the last few months and no time to look for resources of interest to sculptors.

I hope to have more time to devote both to sculpting and this site now, however. I've got a couple of pieces in progress and will again be looking for links of interest to sculptors, so stand by.

Link: http://www.makehuman.org/blog/index.php

I recently discovered a very fascinating open source software project called the Make Human Project. It's been around since 2001, but I only heard about it recently. As a programmer and sculptor with a fascination with anatomy and the sheer diversity of the human form, this is right up my alley.

The goal of the project is to create a single mesh — a 3D representation of a person — that can be transformed (or morphed) into any possible human shape, regardless of age, ethnicity, level of fitness, or other individual factors. But the project is not only about making a mesh, it's about a whole platform - a computer program to allow you to modify the mesh with intuitive controls (without needing to know how to sculpt in 3D). The program will allow you to create a base 3D model to represent any individual, real or imagined, and export that figure to be used in other programs, or Make Human can render images itself.

The program is still in alpha (early testing with features still under development) and there are many features that aren't available yet (hair, the ability to pose the figure, the ability to generate low-resolution models for games, clothes), but the results are still impressive. Since Make Human will export files in a widely-used, industry standard file format called Wavefront OBJ, you can use the program today as a starting point for digital sculpting, finishing up in another program like Maya or Blender.

Because the program is open source, if you're technically minded, you can actually make changes to the underlying data models to suit your own needs, and if you're a competent digital sculptor, you might even consider contributing to the project as an artist.

When you first launch Make Human, you're presented with the "universal mesh". This figure is designed to be completely androgynous, with features that are completely ethnically neutral:

There are four sliders on the left side that allow you to mix different full-body features. Move the top slider to the left and the figure becomes more feminine, to the right it becomes more masculine. The second slider changes the apparent age from the figure from twelve to seventy. The third and fourth sliders let you adjust the weight and muscle tone of the figure. Here's an example of the female figure in Make Human age progressed from 12 to 70.

On the right side of the screen, there are four maps that contain ethnic morphs. These contain morphs with facial features common to certain geographic areas and/or among certain ethnic groups. Although this feature is still under development, it's amazing to see the variety of human features that they've captured already. They've got six major ethnic targets from Africa alone. And these targets are not all-or-nothing. They can be mixed and matched, so you could create a figure with features that were, for example, partially Koisan (an ethnic group from the southern part of Africa) and partially Sudanid (ethnic group dominant in the Northeast of Africa).

Although there are fewer ethnic targets for Europe and Asia and none yet for the native American populations, I've spoken with the project members and expanding the ethnic targets is one of their highest priorities. They are actively recruiting digital sculptors and creating composite reference images of the different ethnic groups.

If this were the extent of Make Human, it would be impressive, but it's not. You can also modify the attributes of specific portion of the body, both on a macro level (leg, pelvis, upper torso) or on a micro level (belly button, clavicle, etc). Do you want long legs, or a short neck? No problem. Want a fat figure with muscular arms? Again, no problem. Long torso, big feet, off-center belly button? Want a pretty girl's head on a muscular man's body? All okay but, ummm... you might want to talk to a psychiatrist about that last one.

The roadmap for Make Human is fascinating. They have plans for adding pose tools, different emotions, clothes, different shaders, more textures (skin types), low poly exporters to allow making figures for games. When completed, it's going to be an amazing program. Scratch that - it already is an amazing program. When it's done, it's going to be phenomenal.

If you've got a few minutes to spare, you should download the current alpha and try it out. If you've got a little more time to spare why not consider contributing some of your time to the project (if you can't, you could also donate some money). This is a community-based project, which means that nobody is paid to work on it, and nobody has to pay to use it. It is, and will remain free.

Philippe Faraut, a phenomenal sculptor, has just released a new book called Mastering Portraiture. He has released a video showing the process of sculpting one of the pieces used in the book:

Click to watch in full size
I'm lucky enough to have had Philippe as a teacher and also consider him my friend. As a result I was given an early look at the new book being advertised by that video.

Now, I was already quite a big fan of Philippe's first book. I read it regularly and often recommend it to others. But, I was a little nervous when Philippe asked me to give him my honest opinion on his new book. As an author, I understand the value of that kind of feedback, however, so I was determined to be critical and give him the harsh feedback he wanted.

I completely and utterly failed to find any flaw in the book other than a few easily corrected typos. Mastering Portraiture, completely and absolutely floored me. I stayed up into the early morning hours reading it on the day it came in the mail because I just couldn't put it down. Philippe has pulled together and distilled down the most important things that he's learned from his years of sculpting experience, his extensive research into the anatomy and psychology of facial expression, and his keen observations on the affects of aging and the characteristics of race. The result is just unbelievably good.

It's a book that would be worth buying just for the privilege of looking at the pictures. The sculptures that Philippe created for the book are phenomenal and the photography and printing are gorgeous. But all those lovely pictures are accompanied by words, and those words tell a story that will both help you and inspire you to take your sculpting to a new level.

You should know that this is not a beginner's book, however. If you don't have some experience and haven't ever touched hands to clay, then buy Philippe's first book and put some time in sculpting first, But if you've got some experience and want to become better, then you absolutely should check Mastering Portraiture out. It covers things I've never seen covered in a sculpting book and the information is easy to digest and understand. There's no unnecessary jargon, it just reads like the words of a patient teacher. Despite having sculpted for years and having taken several classes with Philippe, every chapter held new information and inspired me to want to try new things.

I don't often gush over products, even those created by people I like, but this is a book that's really worth checking out. It's truly extraordinary; a beautiful book that I will cherish for years and recommend without reservation.

Well... my life-size bust jumped off the modeling stand. Twice.

Okay, maybe it didn't jump, maybe I didn't do a very good job with the support. I lifted the sculpt up to give me room to do the head and shoulders, but in doing so, I lifted the neck above the dowel. My first attempt at fixing it failed, and now the head is squished beyond all recognition.

Ah, well. I'm jumping all over the place and finding it hard to find time to sculpt. I've been doing a little bit of work in epoxy, and have a small wax study going. I've still got the dancing girl, but haven't done much with it for a while. I'm paralyzed because I can't figure out what I should do for her hair, so she's just sitting on a shelf.

Bit of a rut. Oh, well.