What do you think of a monthly noob sculpting challenge?

pangaea

I was wondering what do you guys think of a monthly challenge just for zbrush/mudbox/sculptris I.e. sculpting.

It just going on this forum you see a lot of people post zbrush faces and you still get the lower the subdivision it is lumpy advice.

So I'm thinking every month there would be an easy, medium and hard challenge for sculpting.

For example,

Easy challenge, learn how to sculpt the wings in this picture and create base mesh using zSpheres.

This is a tutorial I found that is about sculpting wings https://www.pinterest.com/pin/516577019732017209/, so people could focus on creating a simple zbrush base mesh out of zspheres but then instead of doing the face you sculpt wings.
Picture by Amy Judd.

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Medium challenge, learn how to sculpt a dragon

This is a video of someone sculpting a similar dragon

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ulgeAZFOac[/ame]

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Hard challenge, learn how to sculpt a Elephant and put it in armour.

This seems hard, but you could sculpt the elephant first using this tutorial https://vimeo.com/111930173.
Concept is from Berserk.

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A few easy concepts that could be in the challenge.




A few of the medium concepts that could be in the challenge.




A few advance concepts




I could create a skype group and if people suggest easy, medium and hard concept art to sculpt I could just easily create a thread every month for it.

Note, I'm crap at zbrush, but I think it would be good to have a monthly challenge in it seeing as I can't find any monthly challenges for zbrush on any other forum even the official zbrush central. I don't really want to post in the monthly character thread as I'm a noob and the monthly noob challenge has normally a boring hard surface concept and a environment piece.

TLDR Monthly sculpting challenge, I create a skype group for this and take suggestion for easy, medium and hard concept to sculpt, then I create a thread with one easy, one medium and one hard concept to sculpt from the suggestion I get. Is this a good idea? Do you think it will be popular?

MisterSande

this seems like a solid idea for people wanting to improve their Zbrush Skills

rino

MisterSande wrote: »

this seems like a solid idea for people wanting to improve their Zbrush Skills

i agree.

Ged

sometimes I like even quicker sculpting challenges, like 1 day challenges eg sculpt an anatomically correct ear or a boxers torso or a cartoon characters head etc.

dry0n

MisterSande wrote: »

this seems like a solid idea for people wanting to improve their Zbrush Skills

Totally agreed

fullchaos13

Dude please do this, I'm always looking to improve my zBrush skills but often find myself too overwhelmed to sculpt anything beyond really basic environmental stuff. For a suggestion, all I see right now are characters, maybe you can also incorporate some non-organic/environment pieces, because right now I'm worried this will overlap with the monthly character challenge. For example intricate rock formations and shit of that nature.

pangaea

fullchaos13 wrote: »

Dude please do this, I'm always looking to improve my zBrush skills but often find myself too overwhelmed to sculpt anything beyond really basic environmental stuff. For a suggestion, all I see right now are characters, maybe you can also incorporate some non-organic/environment pieces, because right now I'm worried this will overlap with the monthly character challenge. For example intricate rock formations and shit of that nature.

It didn't occur to me when I made the OP that everyone of them was a character.

I will try and make the easy or medium concept a environment piece like trees, plants or rock without any creatures in them.

I will create a thread on June 1st and see if people join in. I think it will be popular.

Ged wrote: »

sometimes I like even quicker sculpting challenges, like 1 day challenges eg sculpt an anatomically correct ear or a boxers torso or a cartoon characters head etc.

There is a weekly anatomy thread and it has ran for the past 6 weeks.

I feel monthly challenges are really good for getting people to do stuff. Plus sculpting and zbrush is a big topic.

Ged

pangaea wrote: »

There is a weekly anatomy thread and it has ran for the past 6 weeks.

I feel monthly challenges are really good for getting people to do stuff. Plus sculpting and zbrush is a big topic.

oh thats cool, I havent seen it! which section is it in on the forums?

WarrenM

I'd love this. My sculpting is atrocious.

cptSwing

WarrenM wrote: »

I'd love this. My sculpting is atrocious.

+1!

KeirKieran

Yeah, I'm all for this. I am pretty much a total n00b at sculpting. I've been trying to get to learning on my own but it's way too easy to spend the time doing other projects. I could really use the target of a light-hearted monthly competition.

moose

How about a daily/weekly sculpting challenge? Why limit it to once a month? Go all out! Maybe have a topic last a month, but ask people to actively participate by submitting as many as possible.

start a thread June Sculpting challenge - Spheres everyone participating should be expected to submit at least 4 sculpts in that thread, then collect the images into the first post after! Hold people accountable by not posting images in 1st post unless they do 4. Maybe bribe the mods to feature the good ones in a recap

MisterSande

moose wrote: »

How about a daily/weekly sculpting challenge? Why limit it to once a month? Go all out! Maybe have a topic last a month, but ask people to actively participate by submitting as many as possible.

start a thread June Sculpting challenge - Spheres everyone participating should be expected to submit at least 4 sculpts in that thread, then collect the images into the first post after! Hold people accountable by not posting images in 1st post unless they do 4. Maybe bribe the mods to feature the good ones in a recap

I think doing smaller daily and weekly sculpts is a great idea since it allows for more methods and workflows to be treated. In general I believe studying is most effective when one learns the easier techniques behind complex objects rather then diving in without knowing what you are doing and why you are doing it.

Why not open a topic similar to "How do you model dem shapes" ?

pangaea

moose wrote: »

How about a daily/weekly sculpting challenge? Why limit it to once a month? Go all out! Maybe have a topic last a month, but ask people to actively participate by submitting as many as possible.

start a thread June Sculpting challenge - Spheres everyone participating should be expected to submit at least 4 sculpts in that thread, then collect the images into the first post after! Hold people accountable by not posting images in 1st post unless they do 4. Maybe bribe the mods to feature the good ones in a recap

The problem with a weekly thread is that no one will do it. If you look at the weekly anatomy thread there is only about 10 replies average compared to average of 100 replies that the monthly threads get.

I don't want to spoil the june thread by posting the concepts now. But, you will be able to get several sculpts out of the easy and medium concepts.

You have people going to art school and you look at there portfolio and they have four pieces in them that aren't that good quality and it says done in 8 hours. Some of them are even third year students.

I feel weekly or daily challenges will only benefit people who are highly motivated in which case they wouldn't really need a challenge.

MisterSande wrote: »

I think doing smaller daily and weekly sculpts is a great idea since it allows for more methods and workflows to be treated. In general I believe studying is most effective when one learns the easier techniques behind complex objects rather then diving in without knowing what you are doing and why you are doing it.

Why not open a topic similar to "How do you model dem shapes" ?

I don't really want to spoil the thread I'm going to create in June. But, if a person was motivated they would work through the easy sculpt up to the hard sculpt.

I was watching a art interview [ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WW0hvMMR90c[/ame] and he mentions that you shouldn't really focus on speed painting as you don't learn anything. Feng Zhu gave similar advice. Through, I guess 3d art might be different so the advice might not work