[Zbrush] Stylized Stone Cracks

vibs

Greetings fellow artists,

Lately I've been fascinated by stylized art, especially in video games, and so I started observing various artists whose art style I like most. I also try to reproduce this kind of style in my own artwork.

My biggest influence is Michael 'Orb' Vicente and though I do not play Heroes of the Storm, his artwork in this particular title is my favorite so far. So, I started a diorama as a personal project and it has many... (you guessed well) stones and while I was o(r)bserving Vicente's work trying to reproduce that awesome style I came up to an issue. It's not that much of an issue but it's something I couldn't reproduce with everything that I tried. Masking, clipping, DragRect with Alphas, Planar & Pinch brushes etc.

Here are some references images I gathered with highlighted circles in the cracks I'm talking about.


And here's the closest I've been with clip curve, after trying various techniques.


That which I don't know is how to reproduce the somehow tapered crack, having a rhombus like shape in Vicente's work.
Any ideas?

PS. Sorry for the long post, it's my first one :·)
PS.2 Hopefully it's not a problem sharing screenshots containing someone else's personal work.

cryrid

Have you tried his brushes? One of them looks like that chip. 
https://gumroad.com/l/nOkHw 

vibs

Yes, but I don't seem to get the same result whichever direction I apply the brush.

musashidan

Use the Clip Curve, but sometimes yo may have to generously smooth out the area where you want to apply the detail This will avoid the geo collapsing(due to the nature of the way clip brushes operate. Also, make sure you're at a good angle. Turning on perspective can help to get more interesting angles.

vibs

Still, I don't get the desired rhombus shape... maybe it needs more practice or a certain angle on the Clip Curve.
Thanks for the tip.

musashidan

Yes. Keep trying. It's just a matter of the above simple caveats. A good angle being the most important.

vibs

Thank you all for your replies :·)

Orb

try this

vibs

What an honour, receiving a reply from the sensei himself :·)
I think that would do it ..probably.. heh
Thank you very much for your time and inspirational work.