Daily Sculpt to learn and get better at zBrush

Stephenssart

Hey all, this is just warm welcome to what will become the space that i put up my progress and attempts in zBrush. I havent used zbrush for a couple years and even when it was a brief month or so. I look forward to learning and having you guys' critique to help me on my way. 

Note - On weekdays ill only have about 15 minutes so theyll be like speedsculpts that are quite rough but hopfully ill get to a point where its not bad  

robochrish

Looking forward to seeing them ^_^

Stephenssart

Okay so heres the first to come, i wanted to do a bust for the first one instead of focusing on a certain part of the body so i can do a comparison later on seeing how my progression has come, i was using dynamesh but keeping it low at 64 and wanted to attempt something that resembles a human, i used a little reference ( some anatomy, some planes of the face, and just looking at faces of people).  I ask for some insight on what would be the best ways to start to improving on my skill and what you guys have to help guide me to be better. Thank you

Stephenssart

Number 2 of the sculpts i was able to spend a little more time on this one compared to the last one where it was 15 minutes this one is about 35 minutes, i feel like the side silhouette isnt too bad but the proportions are still off, im looking around for some good reference in the sense of facial proportions and bone structure. 

Jakub

Personally I think you shouldn't focus on speedsculpting at this point. Speed comes with knowledge and work. It will be better if you focus on one head for the whole week, rather than starting a new one ever day. 

Stephenssart

I do agree and have heard that myself even about 2d painting, since i do it on my work lunches as well as at home i might try 2 simultaneous one for work only and one for home only. instead of a new one each time @Jakub

Stephenssart

WORKSCULPT
okay so this is my sculpt at work , i had some orthographs to better help me with proportions didnt have too much time today to work on it but definitely better than where i started

Stephenssart

Continuing on that last sculpt i lost the reference to it so i found a new one and will attack it along with todays progress, i was pretty busy this weekend so thats why nothing was up

Stephenssart

slight adjustments, 15 mitutes to work on it today, i think the jawline fits a little better and the silhouette but still trying to figure out the mouth
/lips

Jakub

What you lack the most at this point is the knowledge about facial anatomy. Without it, you will have a really hard time sculpting a face that looks correctly on all the angles. I'd suggest sculpting a skull first.

Stephenssart

Ive  found a very detailed video on facial anatomy and sculpture which ill be looking at to help me @jakub i do know that anatomy is the largest factor to help me get better so im doing research here and there, thanks for the advise

Stephenssart

slight adjustments, havent had time to spend on this much

Stephenssart

15min. Attempted to put eyes in to no avail, i lost a lot of shape trying and wasnt too sure how to go about the socketso im probably going to roll back to the last file and research more.

musashidan

Whether intentional or not, you're moving towards stylisation. This can be a sub-conscious crutch when you yet lack the anatomical knowledge to tackle realism. I would advise against this until you understand the basic proportions/bony landmarks/morphology(the visual sculpt in the sense of top-most surface of skin and fat) The old adage of 'know the rules to break them'.

I see it over and over again with those new to sculpting/anatomy: trying to find form at much too high a res. This is fine when you have experience, and have comfortable control of the brushes but usually ends in frustration when you don't. Starting with and low-low res mesh will allow you to find the forms much easier. The tried and true ZB method of using your sub-div levels as one of your most valuable tools when sculpting should not be overlooked. Most of those new to ZB just jump straight to Dynamesh and don't seem to know of the traditional sub-div method. It has so many advantages. Personally, I would use the move brush for 80% of the work when finding the forms/proportions/etc. So having a 3000 or so point base level is vital to this workflow.

I would also advise loading some front/side proportion or skull refs into spotlight or the floor grid to check things as you go. Distances/silhoutte/proportion /bony landmarks are the key at the early stages of learning anatomy. That is why starting with a skull sculpt is usually advised.

Another important factor I would always recommend is to sculpt using the basic material and continually move the interactive light around. Matcaps will often give a poor representation of your true forms. Sculpting is all about increasing/reducing light and shadow to achieve forms. The Matcaps have baked light and your sculpt will look very different under lighting in a physical environment render. To add to this, if you have Keyshot then continually checking your forms in there under different lighting is a really great workflow that I use all the time when sculpting. It is unforgiving and will show up all lumps/bumps/poorly sculpted forms/etc that Matcaps generally will not.

Best of luck with your journey. And please.....make it your business to find more than 15mins per sitting....

final_fight

Just get "Anatomy for Sculptors, Understanding the Human Figure" book, it's pretty good.

Stephenssart

Thanks @musashidan i completely agree with your point on the stylisation, i did notice it myself and wasnt too happy as thats not what im after, ill take note on the material while i sculpt and see if i have keyshot installed, my thoughts with dynamesh was if i kept it low "64" (i havent kept note on my points count) dont have to worry about the stretching of polys, would it be fine to get the general shape of the head, dynamesh so its roughly 3000 points then work on the anatomy from there and not re-dynamesh a decent workflow?


@final_fight ill get it and have a look through that as well, thanks.

musashidan

Dynamesh is a great tool. I use it all the time. But knowing when to use it(and Zremesher) comes with experience and once you establish a workflow that suits your current needs/project.

As an example, here's a sculpt that I did this weekend. The workflow I used is the one I spoke about above: utilising subdiv levels throughout the sculpt. I often use DM when just sketching or for elements of a character, but for the main sculpt of a head I always like to have edgeloops in place that follow the natural flow of the anatomy. But the main reason I like to use an established basemesh is because there are so many advantages further along in the workflow: transposing, adjusting/refining forms VERY easily(note that I still adjust things like this till the very end of a sculpt, using layers when doing tertiary details, UV unwrapping, and just all round ease of use. Zremesher can at any time be introduced into a DM workflow to get your levels back and project.

I used a modified version of the NickZ base mesh that ships in lightbox. I just delete all the extraneous, drop it to the lowest level, and smooth it all over to melt the features and give me a blank canvas to work from. I have sculpted many heads from scratch so at this stage I don't feel the need to reinvent it every time. But as you are learning it is a good idea to get a feel for the forms/proportions by building from a sphere(which you can later ZRM to get those levels back)


The res on the right is 1 level up from the base and I will work on that level until I am happy with the forms(as mentioned this will always continually be changed/refined throughout the sculpt) I will never needlessly jump up in res unless I am moving on to the nest stage and can't get the forms at the current res. Also of note is that about 80% of the sculpt is using only the Move brush. This is a brush that a lot of beginners overlook.

And here's the final sculpt - just finished the eyelashes/eyebrows about an hour ago

Stephenssart

@musashidan I resign from work in two days and thats where my sculpt is, im tempted to create a new project from home, in your opinion should i keep trying to work this one or best to start fresh, also in regards to creating a sclupt from a sphere i feel once i get the rough head shape that ive stretched the polys, would i ever dynamesh to even out the topology and leave it afterwards with dividing? i have plenty questions i just dont to make a mistake that will cause a lot more effort later down the line

allengingrich

Stephenssart said:

@musashidan I resign from work in two days and thats where my sculpt is, im tempted to create a new project from home, in your opinion should i keep trying to work this one or best to start fresh, also in regards to creating a sclupt from a sphere i feel once i get the rough head shape that ive stretched the polys, would i ever dynamesh to even out the topology and leave it afterwards with dividing? i have plenty questions i just dont to make a mistake that will cause a lot more effort later down the line

I always dynamesh my sculpt from the sphere primitive to fix that issue at the poles. Then I work from that at low subdivision, gradually increasing it.

Stephenssart

Just received my files that i previously had so i will be able to work on it again soon tonight, having not seen it for a week will hopefully shed new light on what i missed and work on it.

Mid Post Edit: I had a more up to date version at work so i cant open it, and too lazy to find and download the newer version so it looks like ill be making a new one again oh joy

Stephenssart

Kinda one of those one step forward 3 steps back situations, since i had to start from sketch i kept it at 3k points, and basically only used the move tool and i get the use if it now, but i felt like i couldnt add any structure into the eyes and nose. Anyways ive been at this for an hour and a hald probably going to call it a night and see if there are any comments on here by the time i work on it again.

Stephenssart

while keeping the polycount low i refined the shape and continued the lips and nose better

musashidan

The difference here (and my own example above) is that you're using a grid based topology, whereas my basemesh topo flows with the natural forms. You will have to go up to a much higher res to get the more complex forms like the eyes. But even so you still have a lot of work to do just to get the basic proportions/silhouette/planes. Have a look in lightbox>grids and you will find a very useful skull and planar head ref setup that will help you at this early stage if you're having trouble working it out. The head is such a complex form that it takes a lot of practice and observation to get it looking natural. I see a lot of people new to sculpting the head just put an approximation of eyes, ears, nose and mouth in, but really it is a LOT more than that when you really study what's going on.

Just keep at it and eventually it will come If you look beyond the obvious features to the planes, silhouette, and proportions.  

Nerono

Stephenssart said:

while keeping the polycount low i refined the shape and continued the lips and nose better

If you want to sculpt the head you should first start with the skull to understand the forms better, get as much reference as you can for any sculpt, a good source of reference for the forms of the head is planes of the head by asaro, a good book is anatomy for sculptors but there are plenty, good luck

Stephenssart

musashidan yeah im using references and ive deliberately left it at a low resolution for focus on the form instead of details of it, and definitely true about how complex the head is and i know its not going to be perfect but i need to start from somewhere. il have a look at the lightbox references you mentioned

Nerono

http://polycount.com/discussion/76733/john-asaros-planes-of-the-head-high-res-photos
http://www.anatomy360.info/skull-sketcher/