1st ZBrush Sculpt

Biomag

Hi guys


Seldom I felt as much out of place as after looking at the things people post here, but none the less I am going to share my current project.

As final project for my year long school I am doing a character with ZBrush followed by a game version made in Maya.

I am now pretty much done with the scuplt as far as I can get it on my own without some feedback, so before I start working on the game mesh and textures I wanted to see what professionals think about it?

The chest plate needs to be redone or at least some detail added and I am not to happy with the cloth attached to the bracers, but I am pretty much out of ideas how to make it look correctly.

Any critic - as bad as it gets - is highly appreciated...

Face is based on a model called Niece Waidhofer

PyrZern

How close do you want to capture the likeliness of the model ? Are you making the brute warrior version of her ?

Ps. I'm bad at paintover, and anatomy is my big bane right now.

Biomag

First of all thanks for the feedback!

These simple paintovers already help me lot to see those things much clearer. Getting the resemblance perfect isn't that much of a priority right now as I had to do the face for a project before and just sticked with it for this whole character. Still for practice purposes I will probably try to adjust those areas.

As when it comes to how brutal I want her to look... I haven't decided yet. For now I guess I would try to just some wear&tear sculpted on the armor and relying more on textures for leather, cloth and maybe face. Though I don't plan to make her too rough anyways. I just ain't sure if I should rather sculpt all those details?

iadagraca

The lion head feels out of place. Are you doing more with it?

slosh

Wait, the shoulder pad is a lion's head? I thought it was a dog seriously. That shoulder pad needs a lot of work because it looks very awkward design wise. It should be built into a larger shoulderpad that actually resembles a shoulder armor piece.

PyrZern

... I thought it was a dog head too. But I guess I could see it as a lioness head.

Slosh is right. It should be an animal head on a shoulder pad on a shoulder, not a head directly on a shoulder :P Unless, you make her a druid or a necromancer or something wild.

DireWolf

For a first sculpt I say it's really impressive. My first sculpt(s) were complete crap.

Biomag

Thanks for the feedback guys


Regarding the lion head it is supposed to be completely made of metal - so not an actual cut off head placed on the shoulder. The previous attempts to put it on a more destinctive shoulder pad made it look even more clumsy, but I guess I will have to attempt it again and see if I find a solution.

skodone

i would place the soulder lion a bit higher, that it actually covers the shoulder

Zukan

I think the reason the lion looks so out of place is because it's just a head that ends abruptly. It needs trimming or something. What I would probably try to do is build a pauldron and dyamesh that with the lion head you already have and then finesse them together and see what happens

Something like:

Biomag

Thanks for all the adivces

I am right now working on a new shoulder pad based on the belt buckle. I will go a more traditional path - probably more something like the picture you posted. I had looked up those reference images, but at first tried to aviod them as I didn't want it to look like these or the Lannisters armor. Yet failing as badly as I did I am looking now for a bigger compromise

Carabiner

Wow, this is incredible for a first ZBrush sculpt - really clean. I am definitely going to keep following your progress here!

Biomag

@Carabiner: Thanks a lot But I am not kidding myself, its a extremely long road ahead of me. A year of drawing, modelling and 2-3 months of zBrush are nothing - too much left to learn... Not completely failing the first steps is at least encouraging



Here the blocking of the new version of the new shoulder pad:







I hope I am getting at the right path now

iadagraca

Thats a much better idea

Maybe its a little too far on to the arm, or its too large. it seems to throw off the balance of the character.

I'd recommend messing with the positioning and size a bit.

Biomag

So that would be the new version of the shoulder pad:




What you guys think?

I guess I will have to reduce its size.

devingeesr

That shoulder pad looks a lot better than the first.

iadagraca

Looks good!

Perhaps you should avoid having eyes on him? it feels a bit distracting

skodone

agree looks much better and also i second iadagracas suggestion about the pupils
it draws the attention to the shoulder pad

BagelHero

Looking good, liking the direction this is headed in.
Just one thing is really sticking out like a sore thumb at the moment-- her lower lip.
Right now it's a little lumpy, but also you're missing the muscle that softens the transition of the corners of the lower lip.


I wrote "fatty deposits" here but don't listen to me I never took classical anatomy. I just know there's a defined shape there, and it's squishy. :V Possibly it's a bit of muscle.


You can see that on most of these, especially the real female refs. Second from the bottom, left is probably the most applicable example, though it's low rez.

The side of the jaw/cheeks could also stand to be pushed in a little further but this could always just be zbrush's wonky perspective so I don't think it's as necessary.

Looking forward to seeing this progress!

Biomag

@BagelHero:
Thanks for your advice! I will take again a look at this area. Here the main reference I used:



@Others: Thanks for your comments! I added the pupils because without them it looked odd - and normally I am not a fan of sculpted pupils, but I also saw in many references them sculpted ...

Here the latest version with the reduced size:

Stirls

While I have yet to be persuaded that this is your first zBrush sculpt (depends on if you mean first full sculpt), unless you mean you've previously used mudbox or something similar, this is coming along really nicely. If this is truly your first, I can't wait to see your second! Haha!

Two parts that really don't sit well with me are the belt and the wristguards. The wrist guards sorta come off as a bit wonky towards the bend/cloth wrap. Te belt is a bit wobbly, too. Like you've adjusted it one too many times. I'd think about straightening that out and then considering how it would react with the cloth you've provided underneath it

Biomag

Febuary 2013 I quit my job as a legal clerk, I started using Photoshop and Maya October 2013 and zBrush May 2014 (with classes) - so yes, it my first zBrush sculpt - though I spent somewhere about 100h split between zBrush, Maya and a little bit of topogun on this

It was an overall learning experience - both zBrush itself and the workflow. I never sculpted before, just a little bit of drawing every now and then. But sure, like the shoulder pad I redid many parts of this sculpt 1-3 times

Regarding your comment - yes, I am not really happy with the cloth for the bracers. I did them as a whole in one mesh (leather straps, armor and cloth) and now it bites me
And that belt got me really on the wrong foot. First time I am doing a higher poly model (previous 2 where just beneath 5k tris) so it was the first time I had to make the belt as an own object. So I guess I should redo it and tight it up more?

Stirls

I see, fair enough then! Welcome!

Personally, I'd probably redo the belt, just to clean it up. But I think you could just fix it with dynamesh and the trim curve tools. It's just the edges.

peanut™

For a first sculpt you sure did well, there's a few things here and there that i would work on but overall you have what it takes to make it to the second step.

That's what i call third and fourth generation newbies.

skodone

one question... how did you do the hairstrips in zbrush? would love to do my hair in zbrush instead of fumbling around in maya for ages...

Biomag

@Stirls & peanut: Thanks, guys for advice and kind words

@skodone: I fumbled in Maya... and then again in zBrush... when it comes to hair I am the worst source for advice

skodone

ok so still not done in zBrush... i hate hair too:D

Biomag

I guess the real work with the hair will begin only once I start with the textures. So no end to the tweaking

I also shouldn't have started with Katheryn Winnick's hair from Vikings... ( http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/236x/3d/90/27/3d90273a12c4713dafc031ceeca43f2d.jpg )... bad idea... I will see what I can squeez out of this idea once the textures are started...

rzthrun

Looks awesome

Biomag wrote: »

I also shouldn't have started with Katheryn Winnick's hair from Vikings... ( http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/236x/3d/90/27/3d90273a12c4713dafc031ceeca43f2d.jpg )... bad idea...

I don't think it was a bad idea, even it proved more challenging then anticipated.:thumbup:

PyrZern

Great job on the lion head ! Now, it's her own head's turn for improvement

Biomag

Hu,

so here an update of the face... not sure if I got all your advices right, I can just hope so - maybe at least it improved a little?



Here also pictures of the high poly sword I made for her. I made it in Maya and just sculpted some details in zBrush. Details are not too crazy as I guess I am going to lose quite a bit of those to baking and texture resultion anyhow and I would be pushing the limits of what my PC can handle in zBrush...





So any advices what needs to be changed?

garriola83

Good job making that lip look better but there is a crease on the lips and it seems not there on the the sculpt. Could be there, I could be wrong. Keep it up.

Biomag

Hu,


here a preview of the finished version - at least for now finished, as I have the deadline tomorrow, but I might review some parts again...

Its just a quick rendering with Marmoset, while I am finishing Poses and the video for tomorrow... it will be a long night as were the last few weeks...



Thanks for your advices guys, you really helped me

By the way - this is the game version model and sword have 18815 tris... using 2k maps right now, sword has its own, smaller 512x1024.

Biomag

So here images of the final result...






Clip for the presentation at school can be found here: https://vimeo.com/108623685