Ray's WIPs - First ever Zbrush model.

Ray

I just started 3D modeling. I've long been a 2D art monkey.

I made tall and skinny and short and squat cartoonishly proportioned zsphere armatures yesterday and am attempting my first Zbrush model today.




I'm following the (very easy to follow) Scott Spencer intro to Zbrush 4 videos from Gnomon.

This is where my first attempt at a Zbrush sculpt sits after a few hours of tinkering. I still haven't touched the hands, feet, legs, and butt since the initial roughing in of the form. They're next. I'm hitting a wall with some of my anatomy knowledge, but sourcing reference as I go.



I'm loving 3D. It feels like cheating after years of having to describe form with line and mass to just place the forms where they go. I think I'm hooked.

Okay, for my first Zbrush, and second or third model of any kind ever, how horrible is this so far?

Ray

Continuing work today. (Skyrim + holiday = no progress for a few days.) I've started to work on the forearms and hands a bit. Legs and back are next.







I'm butting up against my anatomy knowledge, but learning a lot in the process. Eager to get better. Feel free to tell me the work is $#!%. I'm not a wilting lilly!

LRoy

I'd suggest you drop down in subd levels. you should be able to get it looking pretty solid with much less polys.

Looks like a nice start but that red wax matcap is a killer.

nicafornica

no it is not Sh%! it is coming out nice, just keep keeping on and refine it, a lot. Post more to critique more because it look like a blockout but a nice blockout.

Sputch

Hmm, not bad. It does suffer from that new-to-Zbrush look though. Pretty lumpy and your forms feel like they emerge straight off the surface rather than traveling from a point of origin to a point of insertion. I haven't checked out the Scott Spencer tut, but one thing I would recommend doing early is building form up with one of the clay brushes, probably clay tubes or clay buildup. Go into the "Stroke" tab at the top and change your "roll dist" to 10 to avoid that nasty spacing texture.
The reason I like working with this brush is that when you go to smooth your surfaces you can leave the edges of your forms untouched and get nice crisp creases and planar transitions. You avoid having to put a lot of that in after the fact with, say, the damien standard brush. Also, it feeds your process, as you can make out shapes better along the way.
Here's a nice example of laying form down in this manner (skip to 4:00 to see what I'm talking about.)

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBwbln1dlcc"]Sculpting Thor: A Preview of Upcoming Workshop - YouTube[/ame]

I really like the work on your site. It's always exciting when a strong 2D artist ventures into 3D. Usually yields great results. I look forward to seeing where you take this!

Ray

I dig the Clay Buildup brush quite a lot. That was actually how I built up forms, so I'm right there with you. I'll reduce the brush spacing and go forward with that.

Things started to look lumpy-bumpy after I bumped up the subdivision levels to work on the face and then noodled with the body. I'm getting the hang of moving up and down in the levels now and will definitely keep an eye out for that, Sputch, thanks. The video you embedded touched on my exact issue: working on this has shown me EXACTLY where the gaps in my anatomical knowledge lie, which is awesome.

I noticed not a lot of folks use the red wax material - any suggestions on what I should be using? Danke, all!

LRoy

Just the basic material is usually good enough. Red wax has weird shading in the cavities that can hide things from you.

Ray

Noted! Here's today's work in the basic material. I redid several muscle groups on the chest and arms with y'alls advice in mind. If something looks stamped on, it's because I don't understand the anatomy well enough yet (or haven't started to detail it in the case of the back and legs).

Sputch

Ah yes, that makes sense about the subdividing. That's another thing I realized after fiddling with zbrush for a while and watching a lot of timelapse, it's ok to put form in at high subdivision levels. Initially, I got the impression it was this cardinal sin to do any broad strokes on the high res. However, I think that was a blanket statement thrown out to reign in the detail hungry who would back themselves into corners.
If you work methodically with purpose in your form building you can kill two birds with one stone. Or at least one bird and a good chunk of another. Anyway, sounds like you get it, your model's already looking better, hands esp.
With regard to good materials to work with, grab Undoz's set (scroll down to middle). Awesome. I hate the red wax material.

www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?46175-Matcap-repository/page28

PixelKitty

This looks really good so far!

My comment would be that the beard and facial features look more like a wood carving than the rest of the forms. I realize it's at an early stage, but maybe more fleshing out rather than carving in? The muscle tone is looking great and in comparison the face looks less refined.

Just a thought though Keep at it!

WarrenM

Yay Ray! Can't wait to see your style translated to 3D!

Ray

Thanks, Warren! I'm trying!

I'm starting on the face now, PixelKitty, and definitely keeping your comment in mind. I'm draping a bit more flesh over the skull-ish form and am attempting to make the beard less like a wood carving. Thanks!




One quick question. I see models with seemingly more detail in the face, but I'm at 8 subdivision levels and my computer is starting to scream about it. Are others doing more with less because I'm a greenhorn, or is 8+ subdivision levels a normal range to be working in and I should worry less about it?

Visceral

Retopology. Im no Zbrush guy, but in my Zbrush class i choose to work with Zspheres rather than a basemesh, big mistake.

I would say try to retopo this guy and continue on with the sculpting. Thats my best guess.

LRoy

I wouldn't worry about it. You should be able to get it looking really solid with what you have now. You don't need to bother with tiny details at this stage.

Ray

Get the legs and back roughed in and then worry about finishing off the overall detail level. Makes sense workflow-wise to hit all the big forms first. I'm just jonesing to do the face. :P

Ray

A couple of shots of the model in a lower subdivision to show you how sparse the topology is around the face vs. the rest of the model. Also, some work on the legs. Stubby little things!

Dimfist

yeah I would retopo at this point. You should not be at 8subd really ever unless you got a massive computer and you are doing minute detailing. You should be able to have the overall mass and structure by 3rd or 4th subd. I like the style though. Don't forget to use the MOVE brush and INFLATE at early stages. Maybe take it down to your 3rd sub and turn it into a dyna mesh and reshap it.

Ray

Noted! I've got to do some Googling and figure out how to do all that. As soon as I do, I'm there. Thanks, Dimfist!

Ray

The tutorial I'm following was pre-dynamesh from the looks of it. Is this the preferred method of making sculptures directly in Zbrush over zspheres now? What resolution makes sense to use for a model like this? I have it set at 600 and it seems like plenty of detail.

I'm going to do some research and attempt to answer those questions myself, but that's where I'm at. Thanks, all!

Ray

Retopologizing and sculpting in dynamesh mode saved my butt. Each mistake is an opportunity to learn!

Note to self: Zspehere armatures are a good starting point, but have their limitations. Retopology with dynamesh is pretty easy.




Now, I'm working on detailing the face, adding hair detail to the beard and chest, and then finishing off the hands and feet.




After that, clothes and stuff!

So far, I'm loving 3D. I feel like this isn't too horrible for my first model in Zbrush and second model in anything ever. And I'm getting a feel for the workflow, which is probably more important than anything else.

Joseph Silverman

Clay brush. Knit those forms togther. Think in terms of masses of flesh, not plasticy shapes.

Promising, though, man!

Ray

Quick question on that - I love the clay brush to death. It's primarily what I use. Now that I'm in dynamesh, it's gotten hard to make big, gestural changes to the form. Should I exit it? Can I go back to lower subdivisions if I do exit it?

I'm learning!

Sputch

From what I know, I don't think you can return to lower subdivision levels. Dynamesh is really just the "Remesh all" button gussied up a little. You can't even "Reconstruct Subdiv" because the model will usually have triangles and, due to the way it builds the mesh surface it would be really ugly anyway.
You could duplicate the dynamesh subtool, then decimate that down to a very low poly version, subdivide that up again to a level roughly equivalent to your original dynamesh sculpt and then use "project all" to transfer the detail to the mesh with subdiv levels.
Of course that's not ideal for quick workflow, but if you wanted to get back to a mesh with subdivions, that's one way to do it. Again, though, you'd have pretty crazy topo.
I'd just use the move brush and transpose tool combined with some strategic masking.

Ray

Good advice on the masking and moving. I used the move brush to rough out forms at lower subdivision levels and it works fine here, too, I just need to be more careful. I had just gotten very used to jumping to lower subdivision levels to rough in form.

Ray

I just did a super quick sketch to show you guys how I approach roughing in the forms:

Jeremy Tabor

Just quoting myself a bit from Ray's Sketchbook which was before I realized that there was a related discussion in this P&P thread:

Robat wrote: »

You mentioned that you're focusing on getting good forms, and I usually make heavy use of masking and the transpose tools / move brush in that stage. Some people really dig the clay tools for that, and it can definitely produce great results, but I normally wait until the mid-level stage for the things like 'clay build-up' just because of the nature of those brushes - building on top of what is already there. I find if much easier to mask off a muscle group like the calves for instance, and pull those subtle angles out in a nice and deliberate fashion, than build them up from a stick, essentially. I find I can get some really clean forms this way when I hop up the subdivisions, since I don't have to do any clean-up through the assistance the program's interpolation algorithms.

Just another workflow to experiment with as your learning, but you've seem to have success with the clay-tools already, so really it's whatever works for you. I don't know what it's like to have a 2D background, so there may be other methods which make a ton more sense to you than me lol.

Ray

Okay, noted! Thanks for the advice. I'll spend more time doing that on my next model, for sure.

Ray

I'm learning 3D by doing everything perfectly wrong on my first model. Failure is the quickest way to learn what not to do. So far, so good, 'cause I fail pretty well!

I reworked most of the anatomy of the chest and back.

The way I had the initial armature posed made sculpting the interior of the arms and armpit nearly impossible. I moved the arms a bit and positioned them to mitigate that problem. I had to resculpt a bit after, but this is MUCH better.

I took some advice and made the beard and eyebrows into their own subtool. MUCH easier than how I was doing it. Learned another thing.



After getting the anatomy more sorted, I moved onto the beard.



The beard has been a lot of fun to make. Way not finished, but, I dig where it's going. I'm not sure how much surface detail I need. I'm not sure what to do next after the beard. Time for alphas and skin surface texturing?

DillonBarba

hey! its Frenden!
looking fantastic btw, i love the how the beard curls into itself like a braid.
keep it up bro.

Ray

Thanks, Dillon. I aim to! I'm making some alphas today to try and add surface detail.

Ray

Made an HP Lovecraft head to use as reference for some gouache painting I'm doing.

Ray

This is looking less Nic Cage and more Lovecraftian now, I think.

Ray

I feel like I'm learning a lot. Just started to alpha stamp the model to give it surface texture and paint it.



This where my Lovecraft tinkering left off, too.