3D - Anatomy knowledge and 3D scanning

I've been doing 3D and 2D for about six years now but it was not until a few years ago that I really started thinking more seriously about it. It started out as a hobby when I got involved in the modding community of Warcraft 3. I was always and still am amazed by the user-created content of Warcraft 3. I started out by doing icons for abilities and later moved on to models, this was without no prior knowledge. I learned by reading tutorials and asking around a forum for help which really got me interested into 3D modeling.

These are some of the icons I made for Warcraft 3

My first character model, fully rigged and animated

In my last year of school before university I, with the guidance of my teacher started looking into anatomy and was introduced to a whole new level of both drawing and modeling. I started learning to draw and bought my first wacom which I still have to this day. My anatomy skills in 2D aren't the best but I'm always practicing it to get better. I actually prefer doing environments over characters. Here below are some pictures of my 2D work, I selected some environments, some characters and thumbnails so you can see different things.

Some of my recent environment drawings

Character thumbnails

Some thumbnail practice

I enjoy doing characters and anatomy in 3D using a sculpting program like Zbrush. You get a lot of control over everything and it's easy to spot mistakes or faults. When I draw in 2D however I like to draw environments more than characters. I do draw traditionally regularly to maintain and improve my skill level and this is mostly where I practice my anatomy when I get the chance to. I am not too confident in drawing characters and I probably need to work on that. I feel that I have the knowledge but I need to learn how to apply it.

I think what I need to do now is just make more characters to get a deeper understanding and build a visual library for anatomy. Practice makes perfect and I especially need to work on the construction of characters. I'll look at disney concept art for construction help since they have a really awesome way of doing things.

Another thing we've been doing recently which I've never done before is 3D scanning. 3D scanning is basically a way to put a real life object into the digital world. You do this by taking multiple pictures from different angles and then letting a software construct a model using the pictures you provided. I haven't really tried it before but it's a really awesome and effective way of getting realistic results.

Here above is a 3D scanned head that we started working on in class. You get really nice results from making low polys from 3D scans since they are imported from reality. Just bake the lighting and the texture and you got a really nice model that can look very close to the original 3D scan. I haven't really experimented that much with photogammetry but I'm considering buying a good camera and some lighting tools for 3D scanning. Thanks for reading!