Leveling up eyelids

Ozz14

Hey everyone,
I'm stuck in the usual workflow for eyelids which goes something like this:
1. Make a hole for the orbital bone
2. put sphere subtool inside
3. use curvetubesnap around the sphere for top and lower eyelid
4. adjust the tubes so they fit snug around the eye and look flat



I feel like i'm not really innovating or making my eyelids any better this way. It works but i'm wondering if theres any other brushes or techniques that anyone uses to get more accuracy for their eyelids. I would love to hear any alternate or additional techniques that people like to use!

pior

Judging by this screenshot alone the issue is not that of a Zbrush technique or specific brushes but rather, a matter of understanding the way eyelids are structured. Not only at the anatomy level (muscles, organic structures), but also through a visual analytical filter (which shapes and forms to use to efficiently represent eyelids in drawing, painting and sculpting forms).

I would suggest you to not worry about digital sculpting at all for now, and focus on studying the topic with sketches on paper and quick physical clay studies. You will get there much faster, since you will not have to worry about this or that aspect of Zbrush. Once there, the question of which brush or masking technique to use in Zbrush will become self evident.

Ozz14

@pior thanks for taking the time to respond. I just got a sketchpad and pens recently and will definitely work on anatomy on paper. I've been studying anatomy by compiling a cheat sheet of face anatomy (mostly bones) and doing daily speed sculpts between an hour and three hours long, stopping halfway through to see what information I got down, and then comparing the different faces from each day to see how they progress after I finish. I'm wondering what your thoughts are on speedsculpts vs. sketches for this purpose. 

pior

Hi there - thank you for following through

Personally I feel like "speedsculpts" are mostly a waste of time. In principle the idea is great, but in practice Zbrush makes the process way more convoluted than it needs to be and kinda defeats the entire point.

What I mean by that is that the inaccurate viewport distortion (no real perspective), the viewport navigation not allowing for lighting fast review of the model from all angles, the matcaps hiding surface features and the brushes having odd 2.5D behavior (like flatten tools never really flattening things) are all negative factors that definitely will hinder your progress by needlessly making things harder than they need to be. Kind of like trying to paint a picture without being able/allowed to step back and having a good look at the whole.

You'll definitely learn a lot faster by solving the simplification problems on paper first (look up Keven Chen anatomy pictures and Philippe Faraut sculpted work, and sketch from them ; and also, sketch from real life and apply what you learn from both). Once you do that, you'll be able to transfer all this knowledge very easily to digital sculpts. You'll still run into all the Zbrush negatives highlighted above, but at least you'll have a very clear goal in mind from your studies.

Also, things like a solid eyelid structure ... doesn't really need to be sculpted at all. You can carefully build that straight into your basemesh and never have to worry about sculpting it. But that too requires the aforementioned visual knowledge first and foremost.

Good luck !

Ozz14

@pior very interesting information. Ill think about it and switch to a pen and pad for awhile to see how it compares. have a good one

kanga

Good advice from pior. Also your eyeballs look too small and are too low for the sockets. Eyeballs are really quite large and from the front they are large enough so that there is almost one eyeball space between them. Another way to sculpt the eye is to place them in the head of you model as a separate ztool, switch to transparent mode so you can see the eyeballs in the face, then carve into the face and then sculpt out the eyelids until you have the forms you need. The eyeball subtools will mask your face sculpting and make it difficult to sculpt through the eyeball subtool. When that happens hit the Ghost button (roughly in the same area are as the transparent button beside the canvas view)  and keep going.

Get the shape you want and if your geometry is too low rez for the fine details, duplicate the mesh and Zremesh the copy, using the guide brush to determine the edgeflow of your body/face model. Then project the original model onto the remeshed subtool, and with better topology you should have all the resolution you need to complete the final sculpt.

Monster or character sculpts can be wildly different in anatomy to humans but there are certain elements that are needed to allow the sculpt to read, or look good so the viewer can identify with the model. Eyelids (if you have them) are really just covers for the balls. Judging by the character pic you posted this model needs human based anatomy in that area to help it read properly.

Hope this helps.
Cheers.

Ozz14

@kanga good advice for the low rez remesh, thanks

Elithenia

I agree with @pior and @kanga 's good advice. 
Look at Asar's planes of the face. Learn the structures, bones, planes of the face, and how the muscles work together.
try to redo them in 3d with the lowest possible res you can, and only divide when you cannot do more with the level you have.

I don't know how much it can help, but I recorded a sculpt I did to practice working with the lower res workflow... in this one I started out looking at Matt Thorups tutorial as well. 

https://youtu.be/jZggQeSqdz4