Zombie Boy tutorial

After tweaking a bunch of stuff, I decided to do a quick break down of how I went about doing this image.

After doing the Alien and Zombie Boy I received a few emails asking me about different techniques I used in making it, so I figured to answer any and all questions I would go in and break it down from beginning to end.  

Modeling 

So first I started with the base mesh of a kid project that I did,  and modified to to how I needed it to be I immediately saw this staggering zombie lurching forward in my head.

 

And so began detailing the thing. I wont lie, I don't like using a lot of brushes.  I do love the clay buildup brush.  It allows me to work fast and frenzied.  I set this to a low intensity and really grow the form. 

I tend to go in periodically with the DMS standard brush, and chisel in details that I know will be needed later one.  once everything is really set, on the lower levels I go in with the soft form brush and build up what I missed.  

I don't like using the inflate tool too much, only because it tends to get tricky to use on higher levels.  

Now its very important to note at this point and all points in the process that I'm constantly looking at and adjusting the silhouette.  This is probably the most important part of the sculpting process, as it will determine how your figure reads when compared to any background.   

This image below shows perspective turned off, my mistake I admit, so its not a real example, but I do want to put something here to illustrate the point.  It really is important.

As for pore detail, those that know me know I can be a bit of an impatient person when it comes to stuff like that (something I'm working on as an artist.)  I do relish in use of the surface noise plugin in zbrush.  By masking off and applying different variations of noise, I can quite quickly lay down a dynamic looking set of pores.

I then set the clay polish tool to -1 and surface to +1  and it gives me a natural blurring of the pores into the skin. 

Texturing & UVs

Texturing is something that I truly love in zbrush. Mudbox fanboys will piss and moan about per poly painting, but the speed at which I can paint naturalistic textures is something I love.  To make it simple, my texturing process for all of my models is the same.  I start with a dark color, and work lighter.  Its an additive process that I feel really works well.  

As for painted skin textures (as many asked about the alien piece I did) the trick is to not pain solid colors.  Granted looking at it now I probably could have pushed the textures a bit more, but in any case the brushes used was a standard brush  set to color spray, with a speckled alpha.

I set the spray to around .7 so that I get an even coat, without seeing the actually edge of the apha, or seeing it repeat.  

I like to mask off, the cavities, and fill with a 3% dark tone, its not really visible but does get picked up in maya.  

The teeth and tongue were done the same way.  

At this point I'm ready to UV.  Using the plugin UV Master, I do a quick and dirty rip of the mesh.  It was good enough for me to edit.  I know the head is oddly placed, but it worked for what I needed it to do.

 Planning and Maya

So now with texture at hand I begin looking for a set up that I feel is what I want in my final image. I decided to go with the center one in this case.

Taking a cue from the "Make it look real with Mental Ray" tutorial, I then exported a normal map for the 4th level of detail.  I then created a low res displacement map (about 1024px) for any detail lvl 4 and beyond that needed that extra pop.

And then it was on to maya.  With everything ported in I began first with lighting, to recreate what I did in Zbrush.  I came up with using two spotlights, one with Area light turned on.  Its a bit different than using an area light, I feel I can get a sharp/soft mix that I want quicker that way.

I then assigned the Mental Ray Fast skin shader to pretty much every thing haha.  I didn't touch the values, I could have but in in seeing so many Vray renders with default settings I said "why cant mental ray?"  Master Zap took a lot of time making sure those values matched what was accurate for flesh, and so I only scaled the effect to fit the character and lowered the sub-dermal weight (as he was dead)

some texture samples :

Finally I rendered with FG on and a simple color for environment.  Then I took it into photoshop and finished it.

I now adjusted said image here (just adjusted curves a bit):

17 min creature from a sphere (with vid)

hey guys, I wanted to share with you a quick little sculpt I did. It took about 17-18 min. Some people were asking how I sculpt so quick. Its a combination of knowing the idea, or at least having an idea to work with somewhat (in this case an octopus) and using the clay build up brush they way it was intended. In fact as you'll see I pretty much only use that brush:)

Make sure you play in HD 

Speed sculpt now with video

So many asked me recently how I do my skin texture, well I decided to record a quick sketch (nothing fancy) and in it I do some skin techniques.  I only use the clay buildup brush, the move tool, and the DS standard tool.  Well at least for now.  There still needs to have some inflating here and there, plus ears and such, but the face is something that's enough for demonstration purposes.

quick adjustment click to see detail!:

Turntable

How I made it:

making of lobsterman

Edited a bunch of vids today, one of which was a making of my lobsterman drawing:

A new model and a finishing piece for an older one

so updating my thesis, left me with little time to do much else unfortunately, But this past hour I cranked out a simple model and finished another.

The new model is a cartoony aging swimmer:

And To cap of the tutorial on the actual model itself, I finished the base model of the dwarf which I wasn't happy with until now. I don't know how long this friggin tutorial is going to be, but now im onto rendering and props..haha 

Lobsterman base shading

I decided in celebration of a new Air Conditioner (installed by yours truly...with help)  I would begin to shade the lobster man, and I recorded it as well.

I'll be putting that together along with the dwarf tutorial, maybe have a few going at the same time, I enjoy working on different projects though, it keeps me busy and yet entertained.

Dwarf Shader update

Put the Mental Ray fast Skin Shader on him (the previous images were enhanced with photoshop using Match color), and tweaked in to work with the leather as well. It was two hours of general tweaking and frustration but considering, I think Its going in the right direction, though I didn't record this session knowingly that I was experimenting, and didn't have a direction, when I do record it will appear much much smoother :P 

now we're getting somewhere

Like another program finally!

Finally broke into maya with my dwarf.  Or I could say my dwarf penetrated maya haha (so dirty)

anywho heres where Im at

And from zbrush

Tutorials back on track!

Video Tutorial Part 2: Battle Dwarf part deux

Had to go back and make some alterations,  don't worry I'll edit them in...

Recording drawing session FAIL

While attempting to do a recording of one of my photoshop drawings, I guess I picked the wrong settings because nothing recorded... It was only an hours worth of drawing, but still.  I guess its a good thing that I didn't do something more in-depth.  Still would have been nice to have it.

Anywho this was the result of the drawing session:

Video Tutorial Part 2: Battle Dwarf

Well I recorded my progress, now I need to edit it.  like I said before I wont be posting the vids until the entire thing is done.

Now this will be a 5 part vid tutorial. Hopefully all goes well and we shall have something publish worthy (my end goal with this).  We shall see..

Also my comic project idea is coming together.  Its nice to see.  We have a story (we went with the war drama) and I have character sheets for the team as well as a story board I'm working of off.

All this and I have to work on my thesis haha.  Probably later on tonight I'll finish something where that is concerned.

Until then all.  Oh and if you find yourself coming back to this page why not hit the "follow" button, and get your subscribing on.  Its free, and you'll feel 15% cooler the following morning, or so the science says.

Video Tutorial

I'm officially announcing that I will be doing a 5 part video tutorial on character modeling, without a sketch.  You'll walk with me as I try and discover the "character within the sculpt" as I stated in my 3D Artist blurb :P

Part one is finished and edited, but I wont be posting anything until I am done with all 5 parts.  Should be a fun project.  In the tutorial I can tell you that we'll be going the process of model a medieval dwarf, with all the fixings.  Part one has you modeling the base character, Part 2 is detailing and intro to subtools and the shadow boxing the armor and such.  He wont be fully armored, put what he does wear will be detailed.  We will be aiming for a production ready character sculpt.  And in Part 5 I'll discuss in Maya how to turn the character into something useful.

Until then I leave with you the Ending result of Part 1:  The Base character.