Sketchbook: Marco B

marcobar

LATEST SKETCH:
WIP of a character I'm creating for class:


ORIGINAL POST:
Hi Polycount,

I'm currently working towards getting my portfolio "application-ready" over the next series of months, and decided to journal the experience here in the sketchbook forum. Comments & critiques are welcome and encouraged! I will try to give some out to other sketchbooks, too.

I'm focusing mainly on Zbrush sculpting to start, with emphasis on nice details that I can bake into textures. I think my texturing skills are currently lacking, and would very much like to remedy that.

So, without further ado, a small art dump to get things going:

A bust done in 2-3 sittings:


A sculpt and polypaint of a half-eaten burger:


And finally, a texture sculpt of worn, wooden planks:

marcobar

A sculpt of a hunk of driftwood, using various photos for reference. I like how it turned out (especially the severed limb in the foreground), but don't feel like it looks super 'woody' overall. Might take another crack at it later.



Another quick one I did today: a texture study of a bit of cracked stone. Decided to take it a bit further with a bit of poly-painting.

marcobar

A relatively simple wall panel I used to play around with some Spotlight features in ZBrush. I wasn't super happy with how this one turned out, it looks a bit dull to me. I really liked how Spotlight worked, though, and think it will definitely boost the quality of my future poly-paints.

Francois_K

You should slow down a bit and take your time with your sculpts. They Look rather blobby and messy right now.

marcobar

That's a fair critique, given that I haven't done much more with these besides 1) learning how to use a given feature, and 2) rendering out the sculpt once I get it looking somewhat finished. Most of these are done in 2-3 hours, and within that window is a good deal of figuring out/checking the ZBrush documentation as I go.

I think what I need to do is choose a couple of sculpts that I went to spend a larger portion of time working on, and then make sure I take the time to give them an extra level of polish before considering them 'complete'.

marcobar

Took Francois' advice and tried to take my time with this one - a little sketch to get me in the mood for my larger project. I might have gone a little overboard with the cracks, but I was having fun! I also feel like the added level of care shows itself in the sculpt.

Mr.Moose

On all of your sculpts, Start with a lower subdiv and build the forms up. It looks like you're jumping the gun on the subdivision levels which is another cause of the blobby feel. Start low, do all the detail you can before you move up a level. And don't be scared to go back down a level of subdiv, its perfectly normal :P Its why it allows you to in the first place.

marcobar

Thanks, Moose - I'll keep that in mind with the next sculpt. It's one of those cases where I know I should be doing that, but I've formed a bad habit of jumping up by Sub-D's to see what a little piece of the sculpt will look like 'when it's done', and I really need to shake it.

I'm going to take another crack at the same Quatrefoil sculpt I just did, and I'll try to force myself to only jump up a level when I've gone over the entire tool with as much detail as I can.

Mr.Moose

I think every artist starting out did that in zbrush :P You'll notice the huge quality jump just by changing that simple part of your workflow

marcobar

A quick sculpt after learning some neat architectural modelling features with projection master. I'd still call it somewhat 'unpolished', but I'm quite happy with how it turned out. It looks a lot less blobby to me than previous sculpts, thanks to a couple of things: I tried to spend more time on each sub-D level (and even went back to lower ones now and then to correct various forms); and I also realized I was relying too heavily on the Trim and Pinch brushes, and that they were distorting parts of the model in undesirable ways.

marcobar

Coming back after a while with a quick object I wanted to try. It's a pillow with a damask pattern. Looking back, I should have saved the pattern for the very end so that I could add colour to the patterned parts while sculpting them onto the tool:

marcobar

First new sketch in a little while - I've been busy getting my schooling in order (starting at a new college for an 8mo Game Art & Animation course next week). I wanted to do a quick bust of an owl assassin from the New 52 Batman comics (Image Here). There are some things that could use improvement, especially the overall look and feel of the drapery, but I like how it turned out:

marcobar

1-hour head sculpt:

marcobar

A study of a human skull for my organic modelling class. About 2 hours in Zbrush with dynamesh:

marcobar

A "character chip" I've been working on for my Organic Modelling class. I'm going for an above-average male arm. I'm fairly happy with how it's turning out:

Francois_K

I really like the hands , there's something about the muscles that's a bit awkward. The pose is also very unrelaxed but I'm guessing that's what you were going for.

One thing I'd suggest with the hands is adding a slight bend in them , at the top finger joint , adds a bit more livliness and naturality to it methinks, that way it appears more organic.

coolbeans.

marcobar

Thanks, Francois! I'm showing this in class tomorrow, so it's nice having a second set of eyes to point out the errors. I think I may have to drop the elbow a slight bit to give a bit more of a relaxed bend to the arm, and question some of the muscle placements in the forearm. The transition from forearm to upper arm in the 'front' view has been giving me grief.

marcobar

Worked on the arm sculpt today - liking it much better now. There's still some room for improvement, but as a study I'm quite happy with how it turned out. Learned a lot about the placement and insertion points of the various muscles.

marcobar

I've been working on revising this sculpt after I got some critiques in class. Basically, I started again from the ground up, paying closer attention to insertion points of muscles as I sculpted this time. I started out putting in all of the 'dry' muscles, and then sculpted some body fat on top, building up mostly with clay tubes, then flattening and smoothing. Much happier with the result this time:

marcobar

Working on a tiling floor texture for class. So far I have a 512x512 Normal and Diffuse map from a combination of Zbrush sculpting for form, and Photoshop for touching up details. Not too crazy about how the pebbles are looking thus far (they have an almost Mustardy colour, to me), but happy with the overall texture. Quite happy with how it tiles, too (not pictured, obviously):

marcobar

We had an assignment in class over the last week and a bit to sculpt a face in ZBrush. I decided to take on a celebrity likeness, and chose Rutger Hauer from Blade Runner. Here are some reg images for those interested in comparing the two ( One, Two, Three). I struggled a bit with the likeness at first, but think it turned out quite well considering the amount of time available to work on it. I'd like to come back to it at some point, when I have the time. Fix it up a bit, and add some finer detail. Maybe even expand it to a larger piece or re-topo it:

marcobar

WIP of a character I'm creating for class: