Zbrush Masters, Guide Me..

Shadow2Matrix

Hey Everyone, this is my first real go at Zbrush properly. I have a female bust I've been working on. I have just many a references and have some in the scene etc. I want to create a game model eventually but I must pace myself. I worked from the lowest subdivision and worked my way up in shapes as usually suggested for anatomy purposes. My question for you is... What should I do with her next once I am done with general shapes and anatomy. All I want is a badass High Poly render for now but to get there is the challenge during this process. Once I get all the shapes right, should I dynamesh on Highest subdivision? Should I just NOT dynamesh at all and continue with high detail sculpting? If I work on detail such as wrinkles, pores, etc do I need to do anything before the texturing process? I really do not want to half a$$ this. Im still working on her a bit more. Feel free to critique from the neck up as to I still have to make major changes on the chest but I feel I am close to done as far as facial features. Let me know what you think! Thanks Everyone

AtticusMars

Why would you want to dynamesh it?

I would highly suggest working from reference, get a lot of photos of the same person from different angles and use them to help you sculpt.

Also as a general piece of advice, it's a lot easier to sculpt eyes if you make the ball a separate subtool from the rest of the head.

Shadow2Matrix

I have a few people that work with Zbrush and are good at it but I never got a chance to work and have them guide me. Usually its me asking for general advice. I always keep hearing to get the general shapes I want and if I dont have enough geo in one part dynamesh for redistribution. I am just looking for solid workflows here. It made since in my head that once you are done with all your basic shapes, you dynamesh to ensure equal distribution of geo before going into the detail process. I know some questions may be silly, but yes.

Also, her eyes are not separate because I was following a basic tutorial on quick sculpting for practice but I decided to take this one a bit further. Next time I will surely separate the eye mesh. The tutorial used no references either. It was just showing how understanding anatomy gave you solid basic skills. I ,however, used plenty of references. I still have them but did not want to clutter the post with extra. Just wanted to know what you guys think of my work so far and if there are any suggestions you may have.

Also, would this subdivision be high enough to go into detail?

Thank you for the advice @AtticusMars I really do appreciate you leaving some feedback

AtticusMars

I can't really judge without seeing the topology, I can see that it looks pretty faceted for something that has ~2m points though so maybe dynameshing would be worth it.

I cannot speak for anyone else but you took this a lot further than I think you should have if you were just going to dynamesh it. Typically I only dynamesh at very low resolutions in the very early stages of the sculpt to block out the shapes and get an even geometry density. Then I'll either turn off dynamesh and subdivide it normally or I'll retopo it and subdivide it. 

Best advice I could give you is to keep working on your major shapes, specifically focus on refining the planes of the head. If you need some better reference for the shapes I'd suggest googling for asaro head sculpts or checking out some of Michael Hampton's construction drawings of the head. If you have to, put your reference side by side with your sculpt so that you can do a better direct comparison.

Some of the most obvious problems right now: Ears are too high and the shape of the lobe is very compressed, the shape of the mouth is completely off, lips have a rounded shape along the sides and only have crisper edges in the center (you've put a crisp edge all the way around the mouth) there are also issues with the eyes but I think separating the ball off into a different subtool will help you with that.

pigart

Don't go into details now. Just make heads with all the proportions and major landmarks right. Make 10-20 of them or just untill you are comfortable and only then start slowly adding more detail to your next heads. You can add as many pores and wrinkles to you current head as you want but at the end it will still look wrong.

OctoKube

I don't think you need Dynamesh at this stage, you should however run zRemesher to get good topology before you go into details.  I do suggest you separate the eyes so do this: before zremesher,  mask the eyes, press ctrl+W to create a new polygroup then hide the eyes and delete them. From there use zremesher. Use Zremesher to get a good clean base and subdivide from there if you need more resolution for the wrinkles etc.

Shadow2Matrix

@AtticusMars
Thank you for your suggestions, I did use the asaro head early on to get most shapes somewhat right. If not it would have been more of a hot mess then it is now. I have definitely seen the flaws. I also did use references but not of the same person. Its hard to find images of people that are all the same so I Frankenstein features of females that I liked into this one while using as close references as I could find based on those features. Here's to sides to that coin.

I understand that it can get messy doing that as to everything is not 100% but I didn't want to make a face of someone per se', After all we are all creators here and want to sell something fake to look real. Some people may see where I am coming from and others may 110% disagree. Which leads me to my next point.

@PIGART I definitely wont go into detail yet. I do agree practice makes perfect but me doing heads 5-10 times over and over blindly defeats the purpose of this post. I want to get the face as close to believably human as possible. Not knowing where I am making mistakes will only have me make those same mistakes 5-10 more times. That's why im looking for critiques that help me improve what I am currently working with. I don't mind go in back and re doing everything I did up until this stage at all but just scratching this and doing another one repeating mistakes, I just cannot accept that.

@OCTOKUBE i agree with separating the eyes and thank you for the hotkey shortcuts. These are workflow tips that I am looking for as well so that is a great help.

All, I have a friend whom works well in Z and he sent me a few things he believe I should fix as well. I will provide the examples he provided and use this as a base of operations along with reference. Info like this is HIGHLY appreciated and I know @AtticusMars touched up on that early on!
Thanks Everyone

Shadow2Matrix

Here's the main pic I've been using as reference for the face

Shadow2Matrix