Wednesday, September 25, 2013
SFBT-3 Artist Figure Review
CrabFu Blog: It's hard to define S.F.B.T-3, is it a toy, action figure, model, mannequin, maquette, or a doll? Whatever purpose it's made for, I am reviewing it as an artist pose-able figure, for concept art.
Useful artist mannequin are hard to find. There are lots of them out there, but most are useless, lacking pose-ability or not enough attention to anatomy. The wooden ones that you see in any art supply store, are especially useless. I've been in search of a good pose-able figure to drawn from, for quite some time now, and I'm happy to have found an amazing ultra poseable figure. It works amazingly well for figuring out poses.
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6 comments:
I want one of these figures! This S.F.B.T-3 seams like an essential part to any amateur figure drawer to get a good sense of proportions of the human figure. I love how this model is made from a high density plastic compared to the traditional wooden structure. Even though the detailing is incredible, this leaves little room for creativity for body type and personality. The traditional figure is very basic to allow the drawer to expand of this form and create something of their own. With 80 movable joint the possibilities are endless. With all of these awesome features this action figure/model toy comes with a hefty price of $250.
That's really cool. The base of it is a human skeleton. They took a skeleton and added more fleshing out to make it look more human. It looks really neat with the fluid motions that are natural because they built in real joints. This could really help artists who want to draw characters/figures doing something active that normal people can't hold or if they don't have a model posing for them at all.
I wonder if you could use this for prototype fittings for costuming. That'd be a cool use. We'd be able to see how a person moves in the outfit before going to all the trouble of making the full costume just to find out that it doesn't move the way that it should.
Of course they would only have a female; it was probably made by an otaku action figure collector that wanted to pose his favorite characters in a more controllable way. Just look at the head on the figure; that is the classic manga/anime head and face style. I'm sure they have many uses for a posing figure. If you are confused about that, come ask me personally. I'll explain it to you.
I wasn't too impressed with this model. Personally, I don't even understand why these fake models exist. I have that found working with real-life models are better than any man-made object. Seriously? CMU even has free figure drawing sessions on campus, and in Arizona, there are places where you can pay $5 for a figure drawing session. I have seen many flaws with the original wooden models, and I continue seeing flaws in this one.The abdomen is clearly not human (I'm thinking they were inspired by Alien), and there was absolutely no rib cage. The shoulder blades were way too high, and there is no sense of muscle on the arms. The arms themselves were a tad bit too long, and the thumbs are freakishly large. I was also very disappointed when the reviewer mentioned how cool the eyes were. Please let me know when you find a human with eyeballs that large. I really don't care how cool it is. An artistic model is supposed to have correct proportions. If you can't put correctly proportioned eyes on a small model, then don't put them on. That is what model heads are for. These art models are supposed to give a generalization of the body's shapes and how the body moves. They are not supposed to give specific details. Specific details can be found in models depicting specific areas of the body. I would definitely not waste my money on this. I think it is better to use actual human figures because it shows real people. Perfectly proportioned people are very rare. That it is the flaws that make everyone interesting and unique. When you take those flaws away, the overall piece becomes boring and plastic. The whole idea of figure drawing is to depict the person and his or her emotions. A plastic doll does not have any emotions, so whatever you draw will be very "blah." Overall, I will advise everyone not to take shortcuts. Figure drawing takes time, patience, and experience. A toy has nothing to do with skill.
This is amazing. I want one. It's interesting, when he was posing it and then turning it for the camera, it almost made it look animated to me. I've always loved drawing people but could never make a figure drawing class work, or find a figure that I thought worked really well. That tool could have made such a difference in my art when I was younger and I'd love to see if I could get my hands on one now. I know he said it was a pricey product, but I hope it's not too horrible. I wonder if it comes with little attachments that it can hold. I also wonder if there's a model for a face that is as detailed as that.
This is amazing. I really want this this to help with my drawing. I've always used the basic wooden body form for my figure drawing and you can only be so accurate with that. This new form adds so many possibilities. I really like Mariah's comment about the face model. That would also be very helpful. Nothing beats drawing actually people, but sometimes having a real person to draw is not an option. I do think it's a little annoying that they only have a female form. What I need practice with is the male form so I'll be interested in l purchasing one once that form is created (and maybe once the price goes down.)
Woah. This mannequin is insane. The positioning on it is so intricate and life like that it comes off as creepy. This looks like it would be really helpful to people figure drawing because you can position it in very specific positions while still having it look realistic. its so strange that you can even position the eyes the way that you want it. So it seems like theoretically you wouldn't need a human model for figure drawing.
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