Rhia474 posted at 3:50 PM Thu, 28 September 2023 - #4475473

papillon68 posted at 5:34 PM Wed, 27 September 2023 - #4475417

My personal opinion is that she looks really really bad. Wrong proportions, inaccurate anatomy, lack of details and silly expressions. It could have been done much better.

It would help if you have some details on what you list.

'Wrong proportions'-- which part?

'Inaccurate anatomy'-- such as?

Trying to engage in some constructive discussion if people are willing.

At the risk of being accused of an "agenda" again (whatever)...

The two areas that stand out to me the most are the arms and the legs.

Brachioradialis inserts above the elbow and between the bicep and tricep, but on LF2 it just sort of floats below the elbow, making the bicep appear longer than the forearm and giving a more toonish look overall. It seems the geometry was modified to support this (as opposed to LF1's straight rows of geometry) but then wasn't actually used.

So I made a corrective morph in zbrush to get closer to what it should look like:

This could be implemented via JCM correctives, but if it had been built into the base shape then that wouldn't be necessary.

Same with the legs. The inner arc of the gastrocnemius (calf muscle) is lower and more pronounced generally when viewed from the front, while the outer is higher and smoother, ending right by or just above the knee. LF2 essentially reverses this, and leaves the outer arc of the gastrocnemius as a sort of lump while the inner arc is virtually nonexistent.

So again I did some corrective morphs to demonstrate what it should look like (a bit more pronounced than necessary just to show the differences):

Again, this could be implemented with JCMs but shouldn't have needed to be, especially with the focus on reducing the need for JCMs.

There are a few other points that could have used attention in the base shape (hip to shoulder ratio, width/depth of ribcage) but these are what stand out the most to me.

I was going to point them out back when LF2 was first shown but by then it was too late in development to be changed. And I haven't had much time to pay much attention to the goings-on in poserdom due to RL issues lately.

I can appreciate that her creator(s) are attempting to offer a different figure from the standard 20-something Barbie-esque white girl for Poser who only eats once every full moon, it should still reflect more accurate human anatomy. These details may not seem like much to a lot of folks, especially on their own, but combined they stand out to the more critical users who want more realism in their dolls.

There are thousands of anatomy references online that are just a google search away, it's a shame that more character artists in Poser don't utilize them and instead go by what they think looks right in their minds eye. Just search any body part like "arm anatomy" and you can scroll through the results for days, learn the names of all the muscles, how they interact with other muscles and stretch or contract during movement, etc. There are even free courses on youtube for both medical students and artists. It's also a shame that any criticism is viewed with contempt instead of used to improve our skills as artists.

Overall she seems to be an improvement over LF1. There is more topological detail to support better anatomy, so that's a plus for those who don't mind doing their own morphs. Her face is cuter than LF1 (in my opinion), so that's also a plus.