Sculpting clothes just doesn't appeal to me...?

adaweawe

Hi guys,

What if i am totally into sculpting creatures, but when i see clothing and armor, I kind of lose interest? Is that something any of you guys went through? Maybe it's because i'm not really into fashion? Either way, I am worried that I can't make it as a character artist, because I am only into doing creatures and even some props.

Maybe it is just some weird mental block and I just need to be more open minded. 

Brian "Panda" Choi

No it's not weird.  I look at furniture and I just sigh in boredom.

If you want to flex your muscle, maybe think about clothes and drapery for creatures.  Like war horses from medieval era.

adaweawe

Exactly. Don't get me wrong, I can totally appreciate the amazing looking fashion in games, and admire the work that the guys do, but when it comes down to sculpting a character with a lot of clothes, something in my head just shuts off in boredom. 

It's weird though, because it is still zbrush, it is still sculpting, and even many of the forms and techniques are the same as in sculpting a creature. It's gotta be a clothing sculpt phobia!

On the reverse, is there anyone out there that DOESN'T enjoy sculpting creatures/animals?

Tomiajayi

here's the thing.
being an artist means you've got to make stuff that's not your favorite quite often.
just get used to that. Find things to enjoy. Don't just enjoy whatever pops out of your mind/feelings.
Look for things to like in things that aren't your favorite. That's how you stay interested.

Another good piece of advice. Be motivated by DOING. Don't do because you're motivated.
reason is that motivation is just a feeling/emotion, it comes and goes based off weird subconscious stuff. It's totally unreliable, and NOT something you want to base a career off of.

PyrZern

I like sculpting humanoid stuff, but not creatures...

As for clothing, have you tried Marvelous Designer ?? Will having a realistic base make it more interesting for you to sculpt on ??

Popol

Look, if you only sculpt creatures and never learn to make clothing you will have a very hard time finding a job as a character artist, which is already pretty hard.

My guess is that you don't like to make clothing because you're just not good at it yet. So pratice making clothing until you get it.

Kwramm

Tomiajayi said:

here's the thing.
being an artist means you've got to make stuff that's not your favorite quite often.
just get used to that. Find things to enjoy. Don't just enjoy whatever pops out of your mind/feelings.
Look for things to like in things that aren't your favorite. That's how you stay interested.

Another good piece of advice. Be motivated by DOING. Don't do because you're motivated.
reason is that motivation is just a feeling/emotion, it comes and goes based off weird subconscious stuff. It's totally unreliable, and NOT something you want to base a career off of.

Very good advice. If it were all fun and games (excuse the pun), then it wouldn't be called "work". But that mindset only helps you for so long. Even though I strongly recommend the "enjoy the act of doing" approach rather than getting enjoyment from the subject matter.

Eventually I'd look to change the scope of work or careers. I've been there - sculpting clothing - and eventually it gets boring as fuck. You really start looking forward to shoes or something that not entirely folds. Talk to your supervisor, maybe they can give you more exciting pieces, or let you at least try working on something different.

oglu

all latest jobs where done in marvelous... at least the base...

mazz423

Sculpting clothing is, quite frankly, integral if you want to become a character artist, I've been a character artist for about 5 years and I can say without a shadow of a doubt that the majority of what I've done has been clothing.

As some people above have said you have to get used to doing the aspects you really don't like all that much and try to find something enjoyable about them; as if you restrict what you're willing to work on you'll struggle to find work in an already difficult field.

hmm_rock

adaweawe said:

On the reverse, is there anyone out there that DOESN'T enjoy sculpting creatures/animals?

I'm environment all the way, and have 0 interest in creature and character sculpting. However, similar situation, I needed to make some statues for an environment and I kept putting it off because I didn't want to have to sculpt "people." Eventually the time came that I just had to buckle down and do it, and (as others have suggested) once I got into the flow, it's not really that different and I found aspects that I liked. 

Maybe try armor with aspects of creature sculpting in it - like shoulder pauldrons with lions sculpted on or something. 

slosh

I agree that if you want to be a character artist, learn to do the things you don't like as well as the things you do like.  You could try to be a creature only character artist, but you still have to learn fundamental principles like anatomy and proportion for regular humans to still be a solid creature artist.  Even then, A LOT of creatures are still going to have clothes on so there's really no getting around sculpting cloth.  

adaweawe

Thanks for advice everybody. I think studying and appreciating some fashion designs has helped me on liking cloth modeling more recently.  THought I'd share this example:

Mongrelman

Something I find that helps when working on something I'm not particularly interested in is to find inspiration in works done by others. I find stuff like this http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?178789-The-Last-of-Us-Character-Sculpts-(-images-Pg-8-amp-Pg-12) helps motivate when the task is something like shirt and trousers.