References as a crutch?

>>526653
The only people who draw/model without a reference, have done it with a reference so many times, they are etched in their head.
Use references.

>>526653

In this instance it would just be for the height and silhouette of the character. You would still have to manually do all the wrinkles, style the hair and make the entire design work in 3d. You would be surprised how often concepts don't transfer well to 3d. Reference is vitally important for nailing likeness.

>>526657
>>526661
Interesting, thanks. Like I said, I'm new, and was just making assumptions. Good to know that I'm on the right track, then.

>>526653
Yes, op, It is as you suspect. There is like this image of 3D modelling from pop-culture movies etc since the 70's and forward that put this idea of like calculating the volume from a righ/front type view of a object.
Almost everyone have seen some version of that so that is what they naively will attempt when starting out (I did the same back in the 90's). As you gain experience you will completely discard such antics.

People teaching you too attempt to model like this are probably not very accomplished at all in what they do. There is several reasons while this strategy will fail, here's the main ones:

When you draw something it's never an orthographic projection of what you intend, because a correct orthographic projection of what you wanna do will look so retarded that you cant really imagine it and draw it out.
We are used to looking at stuff in perspective because that is how we see the real world.
All experienced modelers and sculptors will work mainly from perspective reference, move around the freely and make correction to shapes to ensure they have the same look and feel as the concept.
Not attempt to draw a front/side orthographic projection of a design and attempt to trace it into existence as if being a human copying machine. Just doesn't work out well going that route.
It's a type of training wheels that only serves to limit your development.

The only real use for image planes is establishing the outline of an object of which you have a true orthographic projection, such as the 'blue print' of a vehicle.
Even then most of your work capturing said vehicle will be done in perspective from perspective reference.

>>526709
This is a gigantic misinformation post.

You model in orthographic, how things look from Perspective depends entirely on the camera (or viewport) settings.

References are essential; tracing them isn't necessarily essential (but it's how you start out), but reference images are.

>>526653
True artists use and learn from references. Life drawing, figure drawing, etc. You can't get better until you learn to observe. Modeling from memory introduces all kinds of inaccuracies because your brain fills in the gaps for things you have not observed enough. If you're trying to learn, you'll learn more by using refs and paying close attention to them. (Also draw/model real people before you make weebshit, weebshit is fine and good but distorts your perception)

>>526716
I dont see a lot of misinfo in that post. You CAN model in ortho but a lot of us model in perspective. If you follow OP's image too closely while in ortho, you're bound to run into issues mentioned in the previous post.

Also if you're using reference images, you probably should be using perspective view and not ortho to work on your model, as there's no such thing as a real life ortho reference. This is up to the artist though.

>>526653
Everyone uses ref. Anyone who says they don't is: a prodigy, an amateur, a liar.

>>526709
That applies only to eyeballing and photo reference.