Sculpting a Character
polycounter lvl 6
I'm trying to sculpt a character head to look realistic. what I have here is the base head imported from 3d max and I'm not sure on how to go about sculpting details. 
I tried importing my reference to the spotlight and lowering the photo transparency to sketch out certain wrinkles and lip definition but havn't had much success with that.
Can someone point me in the right direction to learn how to sculpt in the details of a character's face?
I tried importing my reference to the spotlight and lowering the photo transparency to sketch out certain wrinkles and lip definition but havn't had much success with that.
Can someone point me in the right direction to learn how to sculpt in the details of a character's face?
Replies
Any techniques for detailing?
What techniques do people use for those, which combination of brushes etc. I know poors can be made with noise and smoothing, but what about other parts of the skin that don't have the same type of poors as the face.
Also make sure when you are blocking in form to stay at a low sub-d.
As far as wrinkles you can use the dam standard pretty effectively. Zbrush central is a great resource for free brushes and alphas.
For the fine details of course you can use all kinds of alphas. Save your morph target so you can paint over the alphas with the morph brush to make them more blended in without destroying your sculpt.
daemoria, I actually tried this layer system for this purpose while I was trying things out on my own. I made the mistake of not pressing the record button and so my changes were already baked in and my layer was a useless empty layer. Such is the learning process... haha.
EDIT: I'm having a strange artifact now on the body after changing to other materials...
Anyone know what is causing this?
1. I see most people sculpt the eyebrows right on the head without a texture so I was wondering...How do they texture all those little brush strokes that make up the strands of hair? It seems like painting over it with a color would paint the skin part too along with the hair.
2. Would the same process be done for beards? I have a texture I was going to use and project it on the head but then I realized that the texture is of a man with a stubble beard. the beard I want to make will be a smoother, longer beard so would it be a waste of time to paint the stubble texture and then a beard on top? I'm also thinking the line where the stubble stops at the cheek won't match up with whatever beard I make.
3. the texture I want to use is a bit lighter skin tone than I want in the final product. would this have to be darkened in photoshop or is there a better way of changing the tone of the skin?
Dimfist's comments are right on the money, but I'd like to add some points to it:
1) Start Slow, Start Small - The #1 mistake, by a margin of some 90% of ZBrush users is they do 2 things: They try to make too large of a project without knowing the program, and they subdivide way, way too early in the project. You need to work the form early, the model should still be fairly low-res until you've got the proportions locked in tight. Also, don't attempt to make an entire character, it will overwhelm you like nobody's business. Try doing some quick busts, freeform organic shapes to get a feel for the program and then work your way up.
2) Reference is KING - If you're not just noodling around, and sometimes even when you are, you should never NOT have reference somewhere on your desk. A secondary monitor and possibly HDD are incredibly worthwhile investments to make your life easier, although not required. Start compiling a reference library. It doesn't need to be an active search, but when you're working on a project and you need to see how something looks/works, take a trip to Google images and then SAVE ALL THE THINGS. More reference will always help you in the long run. That being said, one of my personal favorite reference sources for people is movies and TV shows. Get the highest definition version of whatever media you need (Like if you wanted to make a Joker sculpt from the Dark Knight, or wanted to do a beefy guy so you grab the Rundown or Doom for some Dwayne Johnson action) and then screencap the holy bajeezus out of it. Different camera angles, different lighting, close-ups, get it ALL. Of course, your absolute best reference will be you going on a field trip with a decent camera (an iPhone camera or equivalent will do just fine).
3) ZBrush is NOT a magical "Make it pretty" application - This is pretty much just a combination of points 1 and 2 with a few things added. You will get better with ZBrush as you start to learn the tools better but the most important tools in your arsenal are the fundamentals, and this includes brushes, tools, etc. For organic sculpting, there is not a thing you can't make by just using the Standard, Damien Standard (DamStandard), Clay, Smooth, and practical application of masking. That's it, pretty much 3 brushes and your Shift key are all you really need to make pretty much anything organic. The last ingredient of course, is patience and lots of it. A sculpt handled in a controlled manner will look fairly low-res and not cool for about 95% of the total work you put into it. When you gain a better understanding of digital sculpting, you'll discover tools that make your workflow faster and allow you to more efficiently utilize the understanding you've gained by doing it the hard way.
To cap this all off, I'm including a few links for the ripening of your mind-grapes.
Crazyfool's Vimeo page Let this amazing man's sketch sculpts blow your mind and show you how to start from scratch into some of the best sculpts you ever seen.
The ZClassroom Portal Pixologic-approved tutorial videos and tutorial forum for make benefit of glorious learning.
A Goddamned Genie Ask it anything you wish to learn and it will provide. Quality may vary.
I know that you should start at low subD levels and add levels as you need them to focus on proportions. But for most things I start in 3ds max with all the proportions and base mesh. That's when I bring it into zbrush. I already have the whole character I've worked on for a while I only posted about the head because I feel that I am at the end of the base mesh proportions stage and on to the touching up, and details phase of the body.
That being said I posted my progress so that the professionals and salty zbrush users can tell me where I need to improve or what's wrong with what I have. And I'm at a bit of a stand still not knowing what the pros use for doing details like facial hair sculpting and texturing.
That screen grabbing the ref from movies is a good tip! it's sometimes hard to find good reference from google but there's so many angles to grab from motion pictures!
I wouldn't consider myself a zbrush beginner, as I've spent some many months learning a lot of the basics and fundamentals (digital tutors has done a fine job teaching their lessons) but I'm not quite intermediate I guess since I haven't yet finished a complete character.
Once again thank you for all of this great information and also the links I will check out now! I'll post some more progress shots soon.
The most obvious problem is his mouth which is tiny on the rest of his face. Because he has a very small mouth the area between his mouth and nose is very long and throws off the rest of the proportions. Just because he's a dude doesn't mean he has to have tiny thin lips!
It can be hard to sculpt male lips without them looking too girly but I've found that by trying to 'suggest' the shape of the lips more than sculpting them lovingly to be thick and puffy works well. It helps to make them squarer in shape - a more boxy shape to the lower lip will help give them a masculine touch.
I'm going to assume you don't really come from a 2d background. Another think that your sculpt is missing is accurate facial planes, like you can see in this:
Your face, at the moment, is characterized by very rounded features - a round jaw and chin and cheeks and forehead. He needs more definition and structure below his skin before you start adding wrinkles. Obviously not as extreme as the examples above because those are really pushing the edges, but try to have some more confidence in your edges and definitions especially for a male character.
http://www.youtube.com/rkingslien
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for example:
here is some of the reference I'm using from 3d.sk see how the anatomy doesn't show much? that's what I mean. I'm just trying to stick to the reference.
Part of getting better is going to be learning to seeing things. It's not easy, but the more you know what to look for, the more that becomes apparent.
Your ref really does have a ton of interesting landmarks and facial planes, especially in the eyes, the chin, and the forehead. Some of it is more subtle, but it's definitely there.
This is why learning the planes of the face is important , because they train you to see the construction in a different way, and to pull out the planes even in more subtle faces.
Edit: my paintovers are shitty and whatever, but all of these planes should be present in your sculpt, as they are all evident in the reference. To me it seems like a lot of information to work with.
I'd recommend checking into ryan kingslien's workflows for beginners (sphere and dynamesh). It's a pretty hardcore way to get into sculpting based on traditional methods, and not really production efficient, but you will be forced to get that anatomy knowledge. He knows what he's talking about more than I ever will so definitely give it a look.
Also, it just takes a shitton of practice to really understand. So don't ever be discouraged, you will get better and it'll be worth it.
I will take some time and check out ryan kingslien's other videos and learn that anatomy. thanks for the great responses yall!
My suggestion would be to look up 'Dynamesh ZBrush' and start from scratch with a dynamesh sphere in zbrush. Keep it real low poly wise and and push and pool with the move tool until you start seeing the shapes you want.
Also, to get those planes of the face down, just over exaggerate them a bit then you can start to cut into them to get the shapes down.
I know its a lot to take in but being a character artist is not an easy thing. We are all struggling to be better everyday! There are a few guys on this website that are the best...and you should really take their advice to heart.
As for working on high topology, well, there's no point right now, because all the details you need right now is just capturing the planes of the face. Before you go onto details, you need to get the planes right, or it'll look strange.