Armored Beasts Chapter 01 | Lizard Chapter 01: Lizard Software used: ZBrush 4.0
Hi, my name is Bruno Câmara and over the next few pages I’ll be explaining the process I used to create my lizard character. I hope you like it!
The Idea The main idea for this tutorial was to come up with an armored creature of some kind, so I decided to create a reptilian beast that lived a long time ago, in a fantasy kind of era where there were few resources and constant conict. The beast wasn’t very intelligent and basically lived by ghting for food. He was always one of the rst on the battleeld and his armor wasn’t particularly strong or thick because of the lack of resources and the fact that the lizards can’t forge metal. It was basically made of things he found or collected from dead enemies. With this idea in my head I started to sketch some rough ideas (Fig.01). I created some messy silhouettes and then the character began to form out of these.
Generally the rst sketches you make are the most cliché ones. The more options and variations you sketch, the more interesting and original they become. In Fig.02 you can see the option I chose as the concept for my character, which I then developed into the nal concept shown in Fig.03.
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Chapter 01
Chapter 01 | Lizard Armored Beasts It is here that I dened everything. You don’t need to do a detailed sketch or concept for your images, but getting some ideas down on paper may help. It helps me a great deal when I start the sculpting, as I already know what I plan to do and have things like scale and pose decided in advance. I always gather references at this point as well, as it helps sell the image and make it more accurate.
Modeling Then it was time to start the hard work. For the modeling I separated the character into three main parts: the head, body and props. Before anything else though, I started on the main base
Sculpting the Head
1. Create a ZSphere and hit Edit
using ZSpheres (Fig. 04).
On this mesh I had already dened the shapes
2. In Tool > Rigging, click Select Mesh
of the head, but I hadn’t detailed it yet so I did a
3. Select the mesh you will use to create the
After building the structure I converted it to
simple retopology to have a better base to start
a mesh (Tool > Make PolyMesh 3D). I then
from (Fig.06).
4. Go to Tool > Topology > Edit Topology
started to dene the proportions and general shape of the muscles (Fig.05).
new topology
5. Turn Symmetry on (if needed) and click on To make the retopology of any mesh, do the following:
the model to begin creating new geometry 6. Press A to see the new mesh 7. When you are done, press Tool > Make PolyMesh 3D.
That’s the process I used to make the new mesh for the head. This new mesh had some basic edge loops for a better ow and easy detailing in the future. Once the new topology was done I started to detail the head using a reference of a blue-tongued lizard and a Komodo dragon to help me.
The rst one stands out among all other lizards because of his nice body texture and weird tongue. Since my armored lizard was going
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Chapter 01
Armored Beasts Chapter 01 | Lizard to be huge, at three or four times the size of a human, his skin would be more like a Komodo dragon’s or a dinosaur’s than a little lizard. Other references were used too, like iguanas and other lizards.
After gathering several references, I also downloaded several alphas related to lizard skin. You can nd great alphas on Pixologic’s website.
I started dening the main muscles on the head and neck and the folds of skin. I then moved on to the gums and tongue ( Fig.07). The eyes were a simple Sphere3D object and the tongue was made from ZSpheres.
To make the teeth I masked the position of the teeth on the gums and used Extract to create a new subtool. Then using the Inat tool and the Pinch brushes, I pulled and shaped each tooth (Fig.08). Like the tongue, the drool was also made from ZSpheres (Fig.09).
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Chapter 01
Chapter 01 | Lizard Armored Beasts
Finally I detailed the scales around the mouth and eyes manually. Basically I masked the mouth region where the scales would be, inverted the mask and used a combination of the Standard brush and Inat brush to highlight the scales (Fig.10). I used this process for the major scales; the others I did with skin alphas (Fig.11).
I didn’t spend much time on the shoulders as they were going to be hidden behind the leather clothes. In Fig.12 you can see the completed head.
Detailing the Body The lizard’s body demanded a mixture of human and lizard anatomy. To tackle this I collected as many references of human muscles and lizards as possible. I tried to create a strong body that looked balanced enough to carry the weight of the armor.
As I had already modeled a base for the body, I used it to begin to dene the muscles of the
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Chapter 01
Armored Beasts Chapter 01 | Lizard
limbs, but before I did that I deleted all of the head geometry as it was no longer necessary. I started with the arms and hands, and dened the muscles and veins (Fig.13). I then moved on to the legs (Fig.14), and nally the torso and tail (Fig.15). Some parts were not detailed as they were going to be covered by cloth and armor.
For the scales I used the same process as I did for the head. I manually modeled the main parts like the elbow and joints. For the rest I used a lot of alphas and adjusted any problems that arose.
The nal body can be seen in Fig.16. At this point I had seven subtools: the head, body,
Ctrl key pressed, I masked the rags of leather
bit with the Move brush, to make them fall on the
eyes, tongue, drool, upper teeth and lower teeth.
that I wanted to extract ( Fig.17).
body, simulating gravity. I created three different rags of leather for the torso ( Fig.18).
Modeling the Props
Once they were masked I clicked Extract. I
There are several props on this character. I
set the parameters for Edge Smoothness to 0,
divided them into ve different parts and created
Surface Smoothness to 0 and Thickness to 0.3.
them in this order: cloth, armor, shield, leather
Depending on the model you make these values
straps and weapons. For both parts of cloth I
may vary. After extracting them I softened the
used Extract (Tools > Subtool > Extract). Extract
edges of the extracted model manually, so I
is just great and really speeds up the workow.
could have a better range of smoothness. It was
At the lowest level of subdivision and with the
necessary to separate the cloth from the body a
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Chapter 01
Chapter 01 | Lizard Armored Beasts For the lower clothes I had to extract a base geometry and mask over it to make out the nal cloth. I created two rags ( Fig.19).
The Armor I thought this metal armor would be useful as the lizard would have to defend against frontal attacks. It would be very old and worn, with pieces of chains and wires around. The fastest way to create it was with ZBrush’s ShadowBox.
This is the quickest way to model using ShadowBox: 1. Create a Sphere (Sphered3D primitive) and tap the T key to edit 2. Click Tool > Make PolyMesh3D to transform it from a primitive to polymesh 3. Now click Tool > Subtool > ShadowBox 4. Hold Ctrl and click and drag on the canvas to clear the mask and erase the sphere 5. Now you have what you need to start working in ShadowBox.
With a resolution of 300 for ShadowBox (ReMesh Resolution parameter) and the X axis symmetry turned on, I drew the mask to generate the armor’s base (Fig.20). to improve the curvature. Then with the Slash1
After this I used some metal alphas for minor
It’s even better to build props like this to the
and Slash2 brushes I made marks all over it as
details, such as rust and wear and tear ( Fig.22).
correct scale (Fig.21). Simple as that! Now the
if it had been involved in plenty of wars. Another
base of the armor was ready to be detailed. I
great tool I used was the Polish brush, which
With the armature complete, I moved on to
started bending the armor with the Move brush
allowed me to atten some areas.
modeling the wires and chains hanging from it.
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Chapter 01
Armored Beasts Chapter 01 | Lizard
For the wires I used ZSpheres, which I patiently
Shield
rolled one by one until I had the correct
For the lizard I created three different shields.
thickness. For the chains I used a Ring3D
One of them is the medusa shield. I started in
primitive. I modied it until I had the shape of
ShadowBox by creating the basic shape ( Fig.
a chain’s ring and multiplied it until I had the
25). After the mesh was generated I used the
length I required for my chain. Using the Subtool
MatchMaker brush to get the contours of the
Master plugin I merged the rings to create a
cylinder. This new brush is perfect when making
single object (Fig.23).
one surface conform to the contours of another.
Using Transpose to move and rotate, I
To use the MatchMaker brush do the following:
positioned the chains just like the concept and,
1. Tool > Subtool (this should already
using the Move brush, I bent them to give them
contain the object you want to deform)
a sense of movement. You can see the nished
click Append and choose the object to use
piece of armor in Fig.24.
as the contour
2. Now you have two subtools: the main one and the reference for the contour 3. Position the reference object below the object to be deformed 4. With the main one selected, choose the MatchMaker brush in the brush palette 5. Click the center of the object and drag; now the object will deform in accordance with the object underneath.
After getting the contour of the cylinder I subdivided the shield a couple of times, turned on Symmetry and started sculpting the Medusa’s face. For the snakes I masked their shape on the mesh and used the Inat brush to pull them out. For the ornaments I used the Stitch brush with a round alpha and modeled some screws around the border. Finally I destroyed the shield using the ClayTubes and Slash1 brushes.
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Chapter 01
Chapter 01 | Lizard Armored Beasts
To create another shield I used the same
metal with screws and creases, and made them
process as I did on the previous one, only I
old and broken (Fig.27).
changed the format and used a sphere as the contour (Fig.26).
I then placed the shields and created more wires with ZSpheres to tie them to the body ( Fig.28).
For the third shield I basically used Extract to create each of the pieces. From a cylinder I
Leather Straps
created a disk and subdivided it to be the wood
I modeled the leather straps using Extract to
part. Then one by one I masked the edge,
match the concept. I masked around the body
center and arrow-shape, and used the Extract
and limbs, but erased a small piece where I
(Tool > Subtool > Extract) to create the metal
could connect the loop with a Ring3D primitive
parts. I then detailed the piece of wood and
(Fig.29).
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Chapter 01
Armored Beasts Chapter 01 | Lizard I repeated this a few times until I had this (Fig.30).
Weapons There are many weapons on this character, consisting of the secondary ones that hang on him and the main one he uses to attack. The secondaries are the remains of weapons, swords and broken spears of past battles. For the swords I made one complete sword and from it created some variations. I used ShadowBox to create the base mesh ( Fig.31) and used Symmetry to create them. Once they were made I used the Move and Polish brushes to detail them. I created variations using clipping brushes to break them into different parts.
To cut any object in ZBrush using Clipping brushes, do the following: 1. With your object on the screen and in Edit mode (T key) hold Ctrl + Shift. 2. The Brush and Stroke palettes have now changed. Choose a Clipping brush like ClipCurv and a stroke, like Curve. 3. Still holding Ctrl + Shift, click and drag to start drawing the cut. 4. To make a curve just tap the Alt key. When you have nished, release Ctrl + Shift to cut the mesh.
I used the same method for the spear ( Fig.32).
There is also a broken axe, which again I created by using the same method as before.
The blade and the handle are the same mesh.
Texturing and Posing
The Polish brush was essential here to make
With the hard work done it was time to put some
the details really sharp. I also used rusty metal
color on the character. As the head and body
alphas to make it look worn ( Fig.33).
were different subtools, I focused on nishing the texture of the head to give the nal look
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The other main weapons are a machete and a
for the body. I started by lling the head of the
cleaver. These were all created in the same way
lizard with a yellow tone, which also complied
(Fig.34 – 35).
with the main reference of the blue-tongued
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Chapter 01
Chapter 01 | Lizard Armored Beasts
lizard. I then used a lighter tone for areas like under his chin and chest. I like to use an alpha for the transition of tones to match the texture of the skin (Fig.36). In this case I chose to use a scales alpha.
With the Standard brush and FreeHand stroke I added some dark stripes at the beginning of the back, as they were on the reference. I also polypainted some more random scales of the same color on the stripes. For the tongue and
teeth I used several references of human teeth
Before proceeding with the texture I broke the
and the mouths of some lizards like the Komodo
symmetry and posed the character. For the
dragon.
pose I tried to follow the concept, but with some differences in the pose of the limbs to create a
For the eyes I used the DragRect stroke. I
better silhouette. I deleted hard objects such as
projected a picture of a chameleon’s eye as I
the armor and shields, and used the Transpose
found them much more expressive than other
Master to pose him (Fig.39).
lizards. For the drool I used a reference image of a Komodo dragon, which has very thick and
Once I was happy with the silhouette, I started
white drool. After the head was ready and the
to place the props and used the Transpose
nal look was okay, I painted the body in the
Masters to make it all work together. This part
same style. The nal body can be see in Fig.37.
took some time because of the large amount of props. I also had to be careful to make sure no
For the cloth I used different images and leather
parts intersected with each other.
tones that had been treated in Photoshop. Using
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the DragRect stroke and Alpha 01 I projected
With the pose ready, I continued to nish the
the images onto the sculpt ( Fig.38).
texturing. I used the same texture for the leather
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Chapter 01
Armored Beasts Chapter 01 | Lizard straps, varying the tones between them, and I
face and the rusted gray metal for the rest.
also applied some metal textures to the rings
I didn’t use a texture here. For the wooden
(Fig.40).
shield I applied the worn silver matcap for the metal part, and a wood texture for the middle.
The next step was to polypaint the armor and
Finally for the round shield I modied the deep
wires. I searched for textures such as rusted
bronze matcap (Material > Modiers) to a darker
metal and rope wires, and applied them with the
version and applied it.
DragRect stroke tool. For both I used a darker version of the textures to vary the tone in some areas.
Weapons For the secondary weapons on his back I used a single material. Maybe I should have used
For the shields I basically just used metal
some variation of hue to achieve a better look.
matcaps, which are freely available on the
Again the deep bronze matcap was changed to
Pixologic website (http://www.pixologic.com/
a grayer version, like steel. This matcap is great
zbrush/downloadcenter/library/). On the
because it creates a sense of texture. It darkens
website, under the option MATCAP METAL, I
the cavities and highlights the bumps so the
downloaded Deep Bronze, Rusted Gray and
weapons have a very old look ( Fig.42).
Worn Silver Metals (Fig.41). For the main weapons I also used a modied The only texture I used was for the wooden
matcap for the metal parts. I used the
part of the shield. For Medusa’s shield I used
SketchShaded2 matcap for the wood, along with
two matcaps: the deep bronze for the Medusa’s
a few textures (Fig.43).
And that’s it. The texturing process was now nished and it was time for my PC to work on the render passes.
Rendering For the nal image I wanted a very dark mood, with low light, as if he were in a cave. Nine render passes were used: Color Pass, Ambient
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Chapter 01
Chapter 01 | Lizard Armored Beasts Occlusion, Main Light, Specular, Right Rim Light, Left Rim Light, Depth of Field, Mask and a SSS pass (Fig. 44).
Before rendering all the passes I saved a view using ZAppLink (Document > ZAppLink Properties). This was to ensure that all the passes would be rendered at the same angle. I also applied a black background to all the passes and increased the FocalAngle to 140 (Draw > FocalAngle) to give more depth to the scene.
Color Pass The rst pass I exported was the Color pass, which is where all the colors were. To do this I simply applied the Flat Color Standard material to the entire scene. By just using this material, I would have lost the metal shaders, so I kept the matcaps of the weapons and all metal parts by going to Color > Fill Object, with only the M (Material Channel) button on (Fig.45).
Ambient Occlusion For the Ambient Occlusion I also used the Flat Color Standard material, but with all the textures
hold Shift and click on the brush-shaped
I only put the AOcclusion button on and in
and polypaints off. To turn off the materials and
icon. Now you can use any color or matcap.
Render > BPR AO, I used the following values:
textures of all the subtools, go to Tool > Subtool,
Regarding the parameters in the Render palette,
- Strength:1 - Rays: 100 - Res: 4000 - Angle: 360 - Blur: 2 - VDepth: 0 - LDepth: -1 - Gamma: 3
And that’s it. The resulting image is in Fig.46. Then in Photoshop I used Levels to highlight a few details.
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Chapter 01
Armored Beasts Chapter 01 | Lizard
Main Light The Main Light pass was a simple sun light coming from the right. I used a white light so I could change the color in Photoshop at will. I set Intensity to 0.7, Ambient to 0 and the BasicMaterial as a matcap.
I turned Shadows on in the Render palette and the BPR Shadows option and set them like this: - Strength: 1 - Rays: 100 - Res: 4000 - Angle: 20 - Blur: 6 - VDepth: 0 - LDepth: -1
I clicked the BPR button and made the Main Light pass (Fig.47). difference is that the light source was behind the
Mask at the same time if you want it to. I used
Specular Pass
object. To do this I simply double-clicked on the
the same parameters for the Fog tab as I did in
For the Specular pass I used the ReectedMap
point of light in the Light palette. I also increased
the Depth of Field tab (Depth Cue). This way
matcap and in Material > Modiers I set Ambient
Intensity to 2, because it gets weaker when it’s
I could see in real-time how the depth of eld
and Diffuse to 0 and also adjusted the specular
behind the object. I made some adjustments
would blur the nal image.
curve based on references. For the light I used
in Photoshop to highlight these rim lights even
the same position and the same parameters as
more (Fig.49).
The Depth Cue parameters were as follows:
I’d used for the Main Light pass, and hit BPR
- Intensity: 100
Depth of Field and Mask
(Fig.48).
Left and Right Rim Lights
These two passes were created simultaneously
- Softness: 4 - Depth 1: -0.22 - Depth 2: 0.16
using the Create Maps button (Render > Create
For these two passes I used the same
Maps). This can generate the main image,
With the Create Maps button enabled, I clicked
parameters as the Main Light pass. The
Depth of Field, Shadow, Ambient Occlusion and
BPR and created these two passes ( Fig.50).
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Chapter 01
Chapter 01 | Lizard Armored Beasts
SSS
the render passes in Photoshop. Fig.52 shows
mode. These tted perfectly, but I duplicated
For Subsurface Scattering I used the
all the passes in order of assembly. I started
the right rim light layer to highlight some areas a
DoubleShade1 matcap. In Material > Modiers,
by opening the Color pass of the character and
little more.
for both the S1 and S2 slots, I set Specular to
applied the Occlusion pass using it in Multiply
0. In Tool > Subtool I hid all the objects except
layer mode.
Finally there was the SSS pass over all the
the head, body and drool and I turned off the
layers in Screen mode. A lot of this layer was
brush-shaped icon to disable the polypainted
I then applied the Main Light pass, which was
erased leaving it in some parts, like the mouth,
textures. I chose a reddish color as the main
given a yellow tint in Photoshop using Hue and
hands and tail.
color and in the Light palette double-clicked on
Saturation. This was applied using the Soft Light
the point of light to put it behind the character. I
layer option.
After I had assembled this I attened the image
then set Intensity to 2, Ambient to 0 and turned
and started a new one. In this second version
on SSS. Finally, in the Render palette, I also
The Specular pass was then added in Screen
I applied the background using the Mask pass.
enabled Shadows and SSS. I pressed the BPR
mode. In this pass I deleted some areas such
Then I highlighted the center of the scene,
button and the SSS pass was ready ( Fig.51). I
as on the pieces of leather and on some metals
darkened the edges of the image and used
adjusted this slightly with Levels in Photoshop.
because it doesn’t make sense to have specular
the Depth of Field pass in the Lens Blur lter
there.
to achieve the blur effect. That’s it! Finally the
Final Composition
armored lizard was done (Fig.53).
Finally we have reached the last part of this
Immediately on top of the Specular pass I
tutorial. Now all I needed to do was assemble all
applied the Rim Light passes using Screen layer
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Chapter 01
Armored Beasts Chapter 01 | Lizard Conclusion At the end of a project like this you learn a lot as there’s always room for improvement. If I went back in time and started again I would change several things to make it better. I think that everyone should leave their comfort zone from time to time to learn and evolve further. I can’t wait to start an even bigger project.
I hope you enjoyed the tutorial. For me it was an honor to write for
3DCreative and
if you have
any questions or feedback feel free to contact me.
Bruno Camara For more from this artist please visit: http://bruno-camara.blogspot.com/ Or contact him at:
[email protected]
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Chapter 01
Armored Beasts Chapter 02 | Bear Chapter 02 - Bear Software used: ZBrush
I was really excited about the idea of making an armored bear, so from the very start I had plenty of ideas in my head. I began by collecting all kinds of reference that could be useful at some point. I knew I was going with a polar bear so I started gathering images of real polar bears, plus different types of armor I found interesting. I also looked for different types of artwork, both 2D and 3D, that could serve as an inspiration.
As it is a creature living in a cold and unfriendly environment I thought it would be cool if the armor is like the protection used by hockey players, so I was inspired by Casey Jones and Jason Voorhees. So that was my starting point and the main inspiration for the armor. I began by doing some fast sketches just to focus the idea before going to ZBrush, although I try not to spend too much time working in 2D because I’m not that good at it .So this is what I came up with (Fig.01). I tried not to go into the details at all, playing
real polar bear photos I tried to capture all the
When I was happy with the concept I moved
mainly with a large Move brush on a very
distinct features of the animal, like the prole of
into ZBrush to continue concepting directly in
large scale, just trying to make the forms and
the head, their unique eyes, bulky paws and the
3D using ZSpheres and DynaMesh. At this point
silhouette more interesting. By looking at a lot of
overall body proportions (Fig.02).
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Chapter 02
Chapter 02 | Bear Armored Beasts
It’s good to know from the very start what the nal pose will be and the feeling you want to achieve as this will help you plan your modeling and posing more efciently. I also did some really fast mock-ups of the main armor plates to see how they change the overall silhouette. I did that by masking where the plate would be, extracting it, adding some more loops and then polishing it (Fig.03 – 04). As always, I worked from larger to smaller forms.
When all the main forms were there and I was happy with how they worked together, I decimated all the different elements and moved to 3ds Max to retopologize. Although this step is not really necessary I prefer working with better topology and polygon distribution. It will be a lot easier when making UVs if you use this approach. I still nd 3ds Max a lot easier and more precise for making hard surface models, so I made the armor plates there. I started with a clean and simple retopology over the decimated meshes from ZBrush using the Graphite tools and then, using the Shell modier with a spline for the prole, made the separation of the different elements more precise ( Fig.05).
For some of the plates I made very fast UVs, just separating the elements which were made from different materials so I could polygroup
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Chapter 02
Armored Beasts Chapter 02 | Bear them by UV later in ZBrush (Fig.06). I also retopologized the bear itself (Fig.07).
When I was done with that I brought all the newly created meshes into ZBrush and projected the details on them before I continued sculpting. At this point I pretty much knew what the nal pose would be so I transposed the model, because posing it later on with all the ne elements and hard rigid parts would eventually lead to stretching and unwanted overlapping. It’s important when transposing a model with hard surface elements to keep them from deforming. This is easily done by isolating them before or after the topological masking (Ctrl + drag over the model) and by Ctrl + clicking on the canvas to mask or unmask them fully (Fig.08).
When I was designing and detailing it I tried to keep in mind that the armor should look believable and functional, and to think about how the different parts attached to one another and the bear. Another thing for better realism was to change the fur behavior around the armor to make it look like it is actually being affected by its pressure. For all the straps I used extracts from the bear’s mesh, using the same method as described earlier.
At this point I polymodeled all the weapons, cords and tiny elements that make the armor look more functional. The cords are just splines with thickness made over the decimated model as a guide. For the dog tag’s chain I used a spline and a sphere, which was path constrained to it, and then played with the snapshot tool until I had the amount of balls I wanted on it (Fig.09).
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Chapter 02
Chapter 02 | Bear Armored Beasts
I mainly used the Dam Standard brush to make a nal pass and to add all the scratches and damage on the armor. I also used it with the SnakeHook brush to make the clusters of fur on the bear’s body. To keep all the holes on the plate the same I made two alphas, starting
For the texturing I rst quickly mapped the
Cavity parameters and the specular curve, just
with a plane in ZBrush, then used the radial
body using the UV Master so I could adjust
to enhance the hairs a bit more. The texturing
symmetry to sculpt the detail I wanted. I then
the texture in Photoshop later if needed. I
itself was quite simple. I just worked from larger
grabbed the alpha and placed it using DragDot
began by lling the bear with a slightly modied
to smaller details and used a lot of Cavity masks
(Fig.10).
SketchShaded2 material. I only changed the
with a brush using spray stroke and different alphas to add a bit of variety.
At some point I opened the texture in Photoshop for some color correction then moved it back to ZBrush to polypaint from the texture. Texturing the plates was really simple, I just masked the cavities, inverted them and then painted some dirt in the cracks. The UV splitting of some of the plates came in really handy here because I easily polygrouped them by UV and then very precisely and easily isolated the half I wanted to paint on. I also made a couple of dirt alphas from photos to add some more variety and noise to the textures.
The rst thing I always do before beginning the rendering of the different passes is save my nal view on a le (under the ZAppLink properties), so if ZBrush crashes I can always return to the exact view I began my rendering on. I began by rendering a BPR render with all the armor lled with the mah_modeling_01 matcap and the bear with my modied sketchshaded2 material with no shadows or AO (I prefer to have them on a separate pass so I can have more control over the intensity and color) (Fig.11).
I rendered the whole model with at color and with Diffuse on, which I multiplied later over the BPR render. Because I needed very precise masking for the different elements for my
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Chapter 02
compositing I did some render passes that I used later on for selections ( Fig.12).
Using a at color material and with inactive subtool dimming put down to 0.1, I rendered all the masks for the armor, all the straps, the bear itself and the snow base. I created three new lights in ZBrush: two rim lights and one ll light, which I rendered on a basic material lled with a black color with a slightly modied specular intensity and curve.
From this point on in Photoshop everything was just about experimenting with blending modes and adjustment layers, using the masks created earlier to have greater control over the different passes. At the end I added some photo effects like vignetting, noise and chromatic aberration to make the image look a little less CG ( Fig.13). And that’s it. I really hope you found my tutorial useful.
Borislav Kechashki For more from this artist visit: http://galero.cghub.com/ Or contact him at:
[email protected]
Armored Beasts Chapter 03 | Chicken Chapter 03 - Chicken
As ZBrush will be used for the materials and
Software used: ZBrush
render, the good news is that we won’t need to set UVs and we will have zillions of polygons to
Introduction
work with! Prepare your hard drive for some big
As part of this series dedicated to the creation of
les!
armored animals in ZBrush, I have been given the task of creating an armored chicken! I have
The Chicken
always been a fan of humor, so I am sure I will
My rst step was to sketch my subject – the
have great fun developing this.
chicken. We all think that we know how a chicken looks until we try to draw one. Suddenly
In this tutorial, we will be using ZBrush 4 for the
questions start to rise, like how many ngers
whole project with the exception of compositing,
does a chicken have? What is the shape of the
which will be handled in Photoshop. ZBrush
beak? What is the position of the eyes in relation
4 brought us the tools that were missing in
to the head? All of these are easily answered
previous versions to handle non-organic models
with an internet search for chicken images.
and angular shapes. Even though ZBrush works
Drawing is a great exercise because early on
very differently from other 3D packages, which
you are forced to answer all your doubts about
provide greater precision and a lot more tools
chicken anatomy (Fig.01a – b).
to edit polygons, the capability of exploring a concept is ZBrush’s greatest advantage. Make
Armor for the Chicken
sure that you have installed the Subtool Master
What armor is most appropriate for a chicken?
and Transpose Master plugins, which are free to
I thought that Roman armor would suit her
download from Pixologic’s website.
perfectly. The idea came from the chicken’s
comb, which works really well as part of a Roman helmet, replacing the traditional feathers on top. To test the concept I sketched the armor on top of my rst chicken sketch.
Even though I plan to make a more cartoony chicken than the one in the sketch, I will leave the decisions on the proportions for later as ZBrush allows me to study and modify the form with ease. The strategy I used to design some of the armor pieces was to create a very simple chicken shape and build the armor on top of it. Also as we will be using ZBrush to apply different materials I prefer to separate some of the chicken’s parts. If you look at Fig.02 you can see my chicken butchering strategy!
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Chapter 03
Chapter 03 | Chicken Armored Beasts
Basic Form
between the chest and the rear to create the
while using the Clay Buildup brush carves the
Start ZBrush, choose ZSphere from the Tool
belly. Also, create two ZSpheres originating at
orbits of the eyes. Press Shift while using the
palette and drag it onto the center of screen
the tip of the neck to dene the head form, and a
brush to smooth the area after adding volume.
to create it (press Shift while dragging to
smaller ZSphere at the rear where the tail will be
With the same brush, make the thighs rounder
keep the ZSphere horizontal). Press Edit (or
placed. To nalize the base, create a ZSphere
and distinct from the main body. Also mark the
T on keyboard) to enter Edit mode. Activate
for the eyes and another originating at the belly
back of the chicken and the base of the neck
Symmetry by pressing X.
to create the thighs (Fig.03).
(Fig.05).
While in Draw mode, drag on a ZSphere surface
In the Tool menu, under Adaptive Skin, press
and a new, connected ZSphere will be created.
Make Adaptive Skin. A new tool will be created
Select a Standard brush. While pressing Ctrl,
If you drag at the symmetry line, a single
with the prex Skin_. Choose the Skin_ tool and
paint a mask on the body marking a very simple
ZSphere will be created; if you drag on any other
continue working on this tool as we won’t be
wing shape. In the Tool menu, under Subtool
point of the ZSphere then two new, symmetrical
needing the ZSpheres anymore.
near the Extract button, set the E Smt (Edge
ZSpheres will be created. Use the Move and
Wings
Smoothness) value to 41 and the Thick value
Scale modes to position the ZSpheres. If you
Turn on Symmetry (X). Select the Move brush
to 0.67. Press the Extract button. A new subtool
click the chain between two ZSpheres while in
from the Brush menu and make the chicken’s
will be created with the rough form of the wings
Draw mode, a new ZSphere is created at that
body rounder. Push the eyes inward so that they
(Fig.06).
point.
lie on the same plane as the head ( Fig.04). Select the wings subtool. Deselect the mask on
To create the form of the body, assume that the
In the Tool menu, under Geometry, press the
the wings by pressing Ctrl and dragging on the
rst ZSphere is the chest and create a new one
Divide button twice to subdivide the model two
background. Select the Move Elastic brush and
to dene the neck, and another to set the length
levels. Use the Clay Buildup brush to mark the
reshape the wings. Also, make sure to move the
of the body. Create a new, larger ZSphere
eyebrows and cheeks on the head. Pressing Alt
tips of the wings away from the body.
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Chapter 03
Armored Beasts Chapter 03 | Chicken Choose the Clay Buildup brush. In the Auto Masking submenu in the Brush menu, enable BackfaceMask in order for your strokes not to inuence the other side of the surface on thin surfaces. Isolate the wings layer by pressing the Solo button. Smooth the edges on the inside of the wings by pressing Shift while sculpting, and ll the inside of the wings to make them thicker (Fig.07).
Subdivide the wings subtool once. Work on the exterior of the wings using the Smooth brush extensively along the edges to make them rounder. Alternate the Clay Buildup and Smooth brushes to add volume to the wings, especially at the shoulder area. Make sure that you end up with a nice soft surface (a simplied version of a wing) (Fig.08).
Beak To create the base of the beak, click on Append in the Subtool submenu and choose the ZSphere. Select the ZSphere subtool and activate the Transp button so that you can see the ZSphere inside the chicken’s body. Activate Symmetry (X). Move and scale the ZSphere to place it at the mouth area of the head. Extend one ZSphere to the inside of the head and another to the outside, scaling it down to form the tip of the beak. Add two ZSpheres along the beak and move them to set the curve of the beak. In the Adaptive Skin submenu, press Make Adaptive Skin. A new tool named Skin_ZSphere1 will be created. In the Subtool submenu click on Append and choose the Skin_ ZSphere1 tool. Now you have the beak model as a subtool of the chicken tool. You can delete the ZSphere subtool (Fig.09).
Activate Symmetry (X). Select the Move brush, change the form of the beak so that it adapts to the head and subdivide it twice. Choose the Dam Standard brush (you can nd it by opening Lightbox and choosing the Brush folder) and create a cut that separates the upper and lower parts of the beak. Using the Clay Buildup brush, carve the nostrils.
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Chapter 03
Chapter 03 | Chicken Armored Beasts
To create the spheres for the eyes, click on
Choose the eyes subtool and click on Duplicate.
projection on the front wall with a front view of
Append and choose the PM3D_Sphere3D tool.
A new subtool with a copy of the eyes will be
the comb. You will notice that a volume resulting
The sphere will be added to your subtools.
created. Click on the Shadowbox button in the
from the two projections has formed. Click on
Move and scale the sphere to position it on the
Subtool submenu. A cube with three walls is
Shadowbox and the volume will be converted to
right eye orbit. In the ZPlugin menu choose
created with a mask painted on each wall, which
geometry that you can sculpt. Using the Move
Subtool Master (free plugin downloadable from
corresponds to the projection of our subtool
brush, adjust the form and thickness of the
Pixologic’s website). Pick Mirror. Activate the
object. Press the Trans button to keep the object
comb (Fig.11).
Merge into one Subtool option and press OK.
transparent and have a clear view of the cube’s
Now you will have two mirrored spheres placed
walls. Also make sure that the Ghost option for
on the eye orbits. Activate Symmetry (X) on this
transparency is enabled.
subtool (Fig.10).
Wattles We will be using Shadowbox again for this part. Duplicate the comb subtool, press Shadowbox
Choose the Standard brush. Press Ctrl and
and clear the cube’s wall masks. Paint the
Comb
drag on the background to clear the masks on
wattles mask on the side and front views. The
The comb will be created with Shadowbox.
the cube. On a side view, while pressing Ctrl,
back part of the wattles (which are actually
This technique requires you to already have
mask the form of the comb on the side wall of
the chicken’s earlobes) will be inside the head
a subtool in order to initialize it, so we will
the cube, keeping the chicken model visible as
volume. Press Shadowbox to create the mesh.
duplicate the eyes subtool and start from there.
a guide. Change to the front view and mask the
With the Move tool, move the earlobes out of the head volume. Using the Move and Smooth brushes, make the wattles thinner and concave (Fig.12).
Legs ZSpheres are great for modeling bony legs. Press Append and choose ZSphere. Scale and position it at the lowest point of the thighs.
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Chapter 03
Armored Beasts Chapter 03 | Chicken Extend one ZSphere up into the thigh and extend another one down to create the bone of the leg. Add two ZSpheres along the bone to make it thinner at the central part and thicker at the ends. Extend one ZSphere and scale it up a bit to make the palm. Grow three ngers from the palm and another from the heel. Add ZSpheres along the ngers to create their curvature. Finally, create some smaller ZSpheres at the tip of each nger to create the nails. Go to Adaptive Skin and press Make Adaptive Skin. A new tool with the prex Skin_ will be created. Append it to your tool and delete the ZSpheres subtool. Using the Subtool master from the ZPlugins, mirror the leg into the same subtool and activate Symmetry (X) (Fig.13). subdivision level so that we can edit them
value to 1, so that we can preview the geometry
Proportions
together and then apply those changes to each
accurately without any smoothing. In the
As we have created each part of the chicken
of the subtools individually. In order to have
Topology submenu enable Edit Topology and
separately it might be necessary to make some
more detail to work with on the body, select the
activate Symmetry (X). Now when you click on
adjustments because this is the rst time we see
body subtool, go to subdivision level three and
the chicken’s surface, a new vertex is created.
all the elements together. Also I want to give the
press Del Lower. Now we have a lot more detail
Each time you create polygons with three or
chicken some more exaggerated proportions. In
at the rst level, which is the one to be exported
four sides they are closed. By Ctrl + clicking
order to work on the proportions of all elements
to the Transpose Master.
on a vertex you dene that you want to create a new edge originating at that vertex. Alt +
at the same time we will be using the Transpose Master plugin (free plugin downloadable from
From the ZPlugin menu, choose Transpose
clicking on a vertex deletes it. If you want to
Pixologic’s website).
Master. Press TposeMesh. Using the Move
move the vertexes, change from Draw mode to
brush, rework the proportions. Each subtool
Move mode. However, bear in mind that when
When using the Transpose Master, ZBrush will
is identied with a different polygroup so you
you move them they are no longer sticking to
temporarily merge all the subtools at their lowest
can easily hide/mask parts of the model. I have
the surface! Every time you need to see the
enlarged the breast area and marked more
geometry press A to toggle between wire and
clearly some of the changes of direction in the
preview.
silhouette. I’ve also made the neck a bit longer and reduced the length of the beak. When you
Start by clicking at the center of the chest where
are satised with the overall proportions, press
the neck ends (a small green circle should show
Tpose > SubT from the Transpose Master
up indicating that you are at the symmetry line)
menu. All the changes will then be transferred to
and create a loop of quads that passes over
the original model (Fig.14).
the shoulder and meets at the back. Create new quads at the front covering the chest and
Chest Armor
ending at the waist line. Create quads at the
With the chicken’s base complete we will use it
back covering the back up to the waist line.
as a mold for the chest armor. We will use the
Hide the wings and create quads connecting
Topology tool to create new geometry that sticks
the waist line, leaving a hole for the shoulder to
to the surface.
pass through. Create a new tight loop of quads around the shoulder area. Create one ti ght loop
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Append a new ZSphere tool. Under the
of quads at the neck line and another at the
Adaptive Skin submenu, lower the Density
waist line (Fig.15).
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Chapter 03
Chapter 03 | Chicken Armored Beasts Under Topology, increase the Skin Thickness value to 0.025. Now, as you press A to see the Adaptive skin you will notice that it has a thickness. Change from Draw mode to Move mode. Some areas (due to the fact that they stick to the surface) will need to be adjusted. For example, the part of the armor behind the neck is concave and it should be convex. Now you can move the vertexes freely. I have repositioned the vertexes around the shoulder to let the wing pass with less intersections and adjusted the back of the armor to be convex.
Under Topology, raise the PreSubdiv value to three to add subdivisions to the mesh result. Press A to check if you like the result. Press Make Adaptive Skin and a new tool with Skin_
the comb. Extend the quads along the comb.
Also create an edge at the frontier between
prex is added to the tools. Append it to your
Create polygons surrounding the eye area and
the back of the helmet and the neck protection.
chicken tool. You can discard the topology
covering the back of the head. Below the eye,
Check Fig.17 to follow the modeling sequence.
subtool. Use the Move brush to rectify any
extend the quads to create the lateral face
intersections. I have also adjusted the curve of
protection. Extend the polygons at the back to
Under Topology, set PreSubdiv to 3 and Skin
the waist line, lowering it on the area between
create the neck protection.
Thickness to 0.02. Press Make Adaptive Skin. A
the legs (Fig.16).
new tool with Skin_ prex is added to the Tools. As the polygons are sticking to the surface we
Append it to your chicken tool. You can discard
Helmet
need to change to Move mode to lift the neck
the topology subtool (Fig.18).
The helmet base will also be made using the
and lateral face protections. In order to preserve
Topology tools, following the design of the initial
some of the sharp angles of the helmet we need
Shoulder Pads
sketch. Repeat the procedure for the chest
to create some edge loops. In Draw mode, click
Once again, the Topology method will be used.
armor, appending the ZSphere and using the
on the edges to create a new vertex at that
Append a ZSphere and activate Symmetry.
same settings. With Symmetry on, create a
point. Create an edge loop starting at the border
Turn on Edit Topology and create a loop of
quad starting at the beak in the area in front of
of the nose protection and surrounding the eye.
quads at the limit of the shoulders, where they meet the existing chest armor. Create another loop inside the rst one and then ll the area between the loop to close the shoulder pad. At the edge, create some separate quads that will work as feather tips. With a PreSubdiv value of 3 and a Skin Thickness of 0.02, make Adaptive Skin. Append the Skin_ subtool and delete the topology base. With the Move brush adjust the
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Chapter 03
Armored Beasts Chapter 03 | Chicken shape in order for the shoulder pad to overlap the chest armor a bit. Create some space between the pad and the wing. I have also made the tips of the feathers rounder ( Fig.19).
Leg Protection ZBrush has got some very powerful parametric primitives. We will use them to create the leg protection. From the Tool menu choose the Cylinder3D. Under Initialize you can adjust all the cylinder’s parameters. Set the X and Y Size to 30. Set Inner Radius to 76, Hdivide to 10 and Vdivide to 20. We have created a tube divided in squares.
Select the chicken tool and append the cylinder you have created. It will be automatically converted to Polymesh3D. Using the Move tool, rotate and scale this to position it on the tube on the lower leg. In Draw mode, using the Move brush, shape the tube as a shin protector (larger at the top and bottom). Using the Subtool Master plugin, mirror the leg armor to the other leg keeping it in the same subtool. Activate Symmetry (Fig.20).
Detailing the Armor The base is completely set and now we can start detailing each of the armor parts. Choose the chest armor and subdivide it twice. Select the Clay Buildup brush and enable BackfaceMask under Auto Masking. Start by marking the pectorals at the center and add volume to make them rounder. Then add the rib cage below, followed by the abs. Then use the Smooth brush to achieve a more polished look. Repeat the procedure on the back, creating some muscle structures, and then smooth the result (Fig.21).
Subdivide the chest armor twice more. Select the Dam Standard brush. In the Stroke menu increase the LazyRadius to 30. Mark a thin line near the edge of every opening. Select the Magnify brush and stroke at the edges of the armor to make them rounder; also, use the Smooth brush to even them out.
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Chapter 03
Chapter 03 | Chicken Armored Beasts For the decorative elements I created two chicken motifs (egg and wings). With the Clay buildup brush I sketched the egg and wings. Then I added another subdivision level and rened the motifs with the Clay Buildup and Smooth brushes. Above the sternum I created an indent with the Move brush to break the line of the neck (Fig.22).
For the detail on the shoulder pads, subdivide the model twice, pick the Clay Buildup brush and roughly mark the layout of the feather structure. Also, using the Smooth brush, try to tighten the detail as much as possible at this resolution. Subdivide twice more. With the mPolish brush polish the edges of the feathers to remove the roughness. Subdivide once more, nalize the edges with the Clay Buildup and use the Smooth Stronger brush to smooth the central area of the feathers. Using the Standard brush with a Brush Modier value of 54 and LazyStep of 0.05, mark the central division of the feathers (Fig.23).
To connect the shoulder pads with the chest armor we will create a leather strap nailed to the chest piece. Using the topology technique described previously, create a strap of quads at the shoulder area of the chest armor. Create a new edge splitting the strap horizontally. In Move mode pull the lower vertexes so that they are placed under the shoulder pads. Create an additional edge loop at both ends. Lower the Adaptive Skin Density to 1. Under Topology, set PreSubdiv to 3 and Skin Thickness to 0.02. Make Adaptive Skin and append the Skin_ tool. Delete the topology. Turn on Symmetry. Subdivide the leather strap four times. With the Clay Buildup brush, create some folds. Using the Dam Standard brush, create a line at the edge of the strap. With the Standard brush set to DragRect and Alpha 06, create the nail heads (Fig.24).
To detail the leg protectors, subdivide once and, with the Move brush, raise the back and lower the front. This seems to be more ergonomic
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Chapter 03
Armored Beasts Chapter 03 | Chicken for a chicken as this articulation bends in the opposite direction of the human knee. Also extend the lower part back and forward to cover a bit of the chicken’s feet. Subdivide twice and create a thicker border with the Clay Buildup brush. I have also decided to extend the border thickness down to create a decorative element on the shin. Subdivide twice more. Use the mPolish brush to accent the edges of the border elements. Working with the Clay Buildup and Smooth brushes, create some feather elements on the shin protectors (Fig.25).
Select the helmet and subdivide it four times. Use the Slash2 brush with Lazy Mouse on to create a plane difference around the eye area.
on the Tool menu for all metal pieces. I have
As the Slash2 brush is actually raising one half
tweaked the Strength, Noise Scale and Noise
of the brush and lowering the other half, you
curve to achieve a pleasantly worn look on
will have to use the Smooth brush to remove
each. In the image you can check the values
the marks on each side of the cut. To add some
and noise curve for each piece. It is important to
decorative nail heads, select the Standard brush
tweak the values with a metal MatCap applied,
and set the stroke to DragDot. Then choose
because the values are very subtle and will
brush Alpha 06, set the correct brush size and
look different with other materials. I have used
intensity, and place some evenly spaced nail
the Zeoyn_Gold MatCap, which I have created
heads. As in the previous armor pieces, I have
and can be downloaded for free at my website
used the Clay Buildup brush to create some
(www.artofjose.com under Goodies/ZBrush).
Detailing the Body
feathers on the cheek protection. The same brush was used to dig a hole for the nostrils
For the straps, which are made of leather, I’ve
Back to the chicken body, subdivide it four
(Fig.26).
used the Standard brush in DragRect mode
times. Using the Move and Clay buildup
(loading the Leathery Skin 15 alpha from the
brushes, adjust the volumes of the head and
To add some textural detail to the armor surface
ZAlpha folder of the ZBrush installation) to add a
detail the connection with the beak. Mark the
I’ve activated the Noise option under Surface
bit of leather texture (Fig.27).
eyebrow, cheekbones and eyelids. I have used some strokes that overlap the beak and wattles to give the idea that the head is covered with small feathers.
Subdivided the beak ve times. With the Dam Standard brush, dene the beak opening. Use the Clay Buildup brush to dene the nostril and draw some subtle strokes along the length of the beak to suggest its structure.
Subdivide the comb and wattles four times. Using the Standard brush in DragRect mode, load the Leathery Skin 15 alpha from the ZAlpha folder of the ZBrush installation. While pressing Alt (to subtract), drag over parts of the model
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Chapter 03
Chapter 03 | Chicken Armored Beasts
to add the leathery texture to the surface. With
in DragRect mode, select Alpha 48. Set the
the Dam Standard brush, add a few cuts at the
Z Intensity to 75 and Focal Shift to -54. Drag,
borders (Fig.28).
starting at the pole of the sphere, to create the recessed iris. Change the alpha to Alpha 14 and
We will now create the iris of the eyes. Rotate
drag from the pole to create the pupil ( Fig.29).
the spheres so that the topology is coincident with the iris and the pupil is placed at one of
To start working on the body feathers, use the
the sphere’s poles. With the Standard brush
Clay buildup brush. I started by marking the ow of the feathers with soft strokes to guide myself. I also added a bit more volume at the tail to suggest some raised feathers. Then using the Clay Buildup brush, I sculpted all the feathers roughly, starting by marking the outline of the feathers, lling the inside and then smoothing the result. I only created the feathers on the areas that are not covered by armor and on the wings (Fig.30).
Then I subdivided the body twice more. Always using the Clay Buildup brush, I rened the head feathers and detailed the orbit area. To create the eshy texture around the eye, a Standard brush in DragRect mode with Alpha 24 was used.
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Chapter 03
Armored Beasts Chapter 03 | Chicken A highly painstaking technique was used to add detail to the feathers. With the Clay buildup brush, every single feather was detailed by stroking the center of the feather followed by strokes that represented the fur of the feather (Fig.31).
If you don’t need so much control over each individual feather (or are not feeling like a glutton for punishment) I suggest a more practical technique. Start by selecting the Plane3D tool. Press Make PolyMesh3D. In the Geometry submenu, disable the Smt button and press Divide a couple of times. Sculpt a single feather on the plane. Make sure that the part of the feather connecting with the body is at a lower height than the tip of the feather (to
Subdivide more and sculpt the scales covering
create a ramp). From a front view, with the plane
the top of the ngers and the leg in the areas
covering the full view, press GrabDoc from the
that are not covered by the armor.
Alpha menu. You have captured an alpha with the depth of the feather. Choose the Layer
To model a single feather, which will be used to
brush, set the stroke to DragRect and pick the
create the tail, use the Shadowbox technique
feather as an alpha. Save the brush for future
described previously. Mark the center of the
use.
feather, as well as the fur, with the Clay Buildup brush. Use the Move brush to adjust the global
The center of the visible selection is now the
The Layer brush has a very useful characteristic.
shape and the ClipCurve to cut little spaces
pivot. Unhide the rest of the feather. Under the
If you store a Morph Target (press Store MT)
between the fur to add more detail ( Fig.33).
Deformation submenu move the Sbend slider
the height of the applied strokes is relative to the
to bend the feather in various axis, creating
surface stored as Morph Target. This allows you
Duplicate the feather, create variations and
a variation of the original feather. Under
to create feathers under other feathers ( Fig.32)!
place the feathers on the tail. Start by pressing
Transform press C.Pivot (Clear Pivot point).
Duplicate to create a copy of the feather. To
Move the feather and place it on the tail among
To detail the legs, subdivide and use the Clay
set a pivot point for the deformations we will
the sculpted feathers. Keep duplicating the
Buildup brush once again. Start by dening the
apply, select the central part of the feather,
original feather and creating variations until you
border between the nails and ngers. Sculpt
making the rest hidden. In the Transform menu
have a nice tail. The model is now complete
around the ngers to simulate the eshier areas.
press the S.Pivot (Set Pivot Point) button.
(Fig.34).
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Chapter 03
Chapter 03 | Chicken Armored Beasts
Color When starting painting and applying custom materials it is good to start saving your project instead of just your tool. The project le will hold all the information regarding camera views, lights and materials. Go to the File menu and choose the Save As option to save as a project.
Start by applying a white color to the full model. To do this quickly go to the Subtool Master (under ZPlugins) and choose the Fill option, then select Color. It will ll all the visible subtools with the selected color.
Download the Zeoyn_Gold MatCap from my website (www.artofjose.com under Goodies/
subdivided it twice, because the color is stored
The beak was straightforward. I lled it with
ZBrush). In the Material menu choose Load to
at each vertex and this way I could paint more
pale yellow, painted it unevenly with spray and
load the material. Make sure that only the metal
detail. Then I painted the iris in red and the pupil
marked the mouth and nostrils with dark brown.
armor pieces are visible. In Subtool Master,
in black. To nalize it, I used a lighter orange
choose Fill and then Material. The golden
at the lower iris and marked the outline of the
For the feathers, I started by lling the body,
material will now have been applied to all the
iris with a darker red. The white of the eye was
wings and feathers with a light gray. Then I
armored pieces.
painted with a reddish gray color ( Fig.35).
made a Cavity mask, inverted it and painted the borders of the feathers with a darker gray.
Choose SkinShade4 from the Material palette,
For the wattles and comb I used a dark red as a
With the same red color as the comb, I carefully
so the rest of the model is displayed with this
base. Then I changed the paint mode to Spray
painted the area around the eyes to make a
material. SkinShade4 is a white material with a
and the alpha to Alpha 07, and painted the
good transition between the feathers and the
bit of specular and is great for polypainting.
wattles with a lighter value of red to make the
bare skin. Some black strokes were used to
color uneven. Under Masking I chose Mask by
enhance the cavities around the eye ( Fig.36).
To paint, choose the Standard brush, enable
Cavity to create a mask for all the cracks on the
RGB and disable Zadd so that it doesn’t sculpt
skin, then inverted it and painted with a darker
I picked a caramel brown and painted around
while you paint. I started with the eye. First, I
red to enhance the cracks.
the feathers loosely, trying to create a gradient from the white head to the brown body. Then I used a darker brown to cover the whole body, leaving a darker color around the feathers. The tail and the individual feathers were left with a lighter color to make some contrast with the rest of the body.
The legs started with a pale yellow base. Then I have sprayed them with a slightly darker color and painted the nails in a lighter yellow. A cavity mask was used to paint the skin details with a darker color.
The shoulder straps were painted with a dark brown. Some strokes in a darker brown were
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Chapter 03
Armored Beasts Chapter 03 | Chicken painted to make it uneven. As I wanted to give
With the big breast and the shiny armor the
the nails a different material, I started by lling
chicken has got a really cocky look, so I thought
the strap with the SkinShade4 material, then
that it would be funny to put her in a situation
I disabled the RGB button and enabled the M
where she was surprised and broke that
button, which paints the material on the surface.
cockiness.
Then I chose the Zeoyn_Gold material and painted the chicken’s nails to make them golden
For posing a full body made of several subtools,
(Fig.37).
the Transpose Master is the way to go. Select TposeMesh and a new tool with all the subtools
mode, by placing the Transpose tool at the joints
Pose
at its lowest subdivision level are created.
and rotating, as if using a temporary bone.
So far we have been busy creating the character
Remember that each subtool will have a
in a neutral pose, mainly to take advantage of
different polygroup, which will make it easy to
I started by masking the right leg up to the
symmetrical editing. The pose will give us more
hide parts while making the masks/selections.
thigh and rotated the rest of the body to put
information about the character’s personality.
All the posing can be made using the Rotate
all the weight on the right leg. Then I masked everything except the left leg and rotated it forward to use the foot as protection. The left ngers were masked one by one and posed to give more expression. I masked everything from the neck up and inverted the mask, then rotated the neck to make it vertical and counterbalance the weight. Keeping the same mask, I rotated the neck to the chicken’s left. Then I left only the head and all the elements that connect with it unmasked, and rotated the head further left. The planting foot was posed as if the chicken was standing on its toes. To nalize, I tilted the head forward as if the chicken was looking at the ground.
In the Transpose Master choose Tpose > SubT and your original model will be posed (Fig.38). Then you will need to start xing any intersection problems you might have with the Move brush. In my case I had the wattles intersecting the neck and the leg intersecting the shin armor.
To give the chicken a more desperate look I gave a bit of variation to the curvature of the comb. I selected the comb subtool and masked the parts that were supposed to stay in place, then used the Rotate mode and the Transpose tool to bend the comb. With the Move brush I lifted the eyebrows for a surprised look. I also rotated the eyes in the direction of the lifted foot (Fig.39).
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Chapter 03
Chapter 03 | Chicken Armored Beasts
Worm To surprise the chicken I chose an earthworm jumping out of a hole. A shouting/laughing worm came to my mind, even though the chicken might have the last laugh. The worm was made using techniques that have already been described here. I started with a ZSphere chain and then sculpted it with the Clay Buildup brush, adding detail with each subdivision. For the tongue, the Shadowbox was used to create the basic form and then it was sculpted with the Clay Buildup brush. Everything was polypainted and the SkinShade4 material was used ( Fig.40).
Ground The tutorial is about a chicken and its armor so I opted for a very simple scene. I appended a Sphere3D to the tool and scaled it up as if it was a hill under the chicken’s feet. Then I deleted
To add some texture to the ground I used
Standard brush in Spray mode using alpha
the bottom part of the sphere and subdivided it.
the FractureB brush that you can nd in the
Alpha08 and varied tones of brown. A Cavity
With the Clay Buildup tool I sculpted a hole in
program’s directories (load it with Lightbox in
mask was also used to emphasize the details
the ground from which the worm is jumping.
the Brush dir). The painting was made with the
with darker colors (Fig.41).
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Chapter 03
Armored Beasts Chapter 03 | Chicken
Composition
To store the camera position, in the Movie
highlights separately, they can also be layered
All the elements are complete, so it is time
menu under Timeline, press Show. The timeline
using the Add mode, allowing us to control their
to frame the image. In the Document menu,
is displayed. If you click on the timeline a key
brightness and color.
disable the Pro (proportional) button and set
frame is created with the current view position.
Width to 1000 and Height to 1500 (this will
If you change your view, every time you click
The strategy is to create a material without
be the render resolution, so set it to the nal
on that key frame you go back to the camera
specular highlights for the base and three
resolution you’d like). Choose Resize. Press
position you have set. You can keep several
different specular settings (broad, medium,
Ctrl and N to clear the screen and drag on the
points of view by creating other key frames on
sharp) that can be composited in Photoshop
background for the model to show up. Activate
the timeline. To delete a key frame, press Alt
using the Layer Dodge (Add) blending mode.
Edit mode.
and drag the key out of the timeline ( Fig.42). I will just explain the theory behind each material
Set the background color to black by choosing
Materials
as all the settings can be found in the images.
black on the color picker and then pressing the
Light is additive. What this means is that if
I started all the materials from the SkinShade4
Back button in the Document menu. If you have
you render three separate images, each with
material. Start by copying and pasting the
a background gradient, also set the Range slider
a different light source, and put them together
SkinShade4 material to another slot (using the
to 0 to remove it.
using Add mode, you get the same result
Copy Mat and Paste Mat buttons in the Material
as rendering a single image with the three
menu). After preparing each material do not
Having the nal image in mind, frame the
lights turned on. Why is this so important?
forget to save it (Material > Save) as the project
characters inside the document area and
Because you can place each light source in
le will only keep the materials that are applied.
position the view. Enabling the Persp button so
a different image layer (with Add blending
For the base material I have set the Ambient
you can have a camera view. The camera eld
mode) and manipulate its intensity (opacity)
to 0, the Diffuse to 100 and the Specular to 0
of view can be set in the Draw menu with the
as well as its color, allowing you to light the
(under Material > Modiers). This eliminates
Focal Angle slider.
scene interactively. If you render the specular
the specular highlights and the Ambient light,
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Chapter 03
Chapter 03 | Chicken Armored Beasts only keeping the diffuse color. I saved it as SkinShade4_NoSpecular.
Then I created three specular materials, each with different glossiness. It is important that the material is fully black with a white specular. To make it black, reduce the Diffuse and Ambient to 0. To make the specular white, go to the color swatches at the bottom and change the Spec swatch to white. To create different glossiness, manipulate the specular curve of each one. I saved them as Specular_broad, Specular_ medium and Specular_sharp (Fig.43).
Light I have set up the light scheme with a key light from the front and two rim lights. To create the
In the Render menu, enable S hadows. Under
Save it (press Gab Doc under the Texture menu
key light, go to the Light menu and enable the
Bpr Shadow options set Strength to 1, so that
and then choose Export). The render settings
rst light bulb. The point on top of the sphere
there is no ambient light that would interfere
of the Bpr shadow will be the same for the rim
sets the direction from which the light comes;
with the compositing. Increase the Angle to 5
lights.
place it at the top right region. Set the color to
for some nice area shadows. Increase the Res
white and the intensity to 0.85. Enable Shadow
value to around 4000 and set the Blur to 2. Hit
To set the rim light from the left, in the Light
and set the type to Sun.
the BPR button to render the key light pass.
menu disable the rst light bulb and enable
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Chapter 03
Armored Beasts Chapter 03 | Chicken
the second. Place the light point on the sphere
materials you have created and apply them to
and Outer Blend values to 1. In the Shader
on the lower left corner. Press Alt and click on
all the subtools (use Subtool Master > Fill for
Mixer options, set the SSS value to 100 and S
the point so that it is moved to the back of the
this). Make a render of each with the shadows
Exp to 6.5. Apply the material to all subtools.
sphere in order to have a light coming from the
turned on.
back. Set the color to white and the intensity to
In the Light menu, enable SSS on the light that
0.85. Enable Shadow and set the type to Sun.
Place the specular renders as layers on top of
you want to generate the SSS. In the Render
Render with the BPR and save it.
the lights’ renders using Linear Dodge (Add
menu, enable SSS. Under Bpr SSS enable SSS
blending mode). Use the Fill value of the layer
Across Subtools, set the Angle to 360, increase
For the second rim light, disable light bulb
to balance the layers’ strength. Erase/Mask the
Res to 600. Render with BPR. Save the image.
number 2 and enable 3. Place the light at the
specular layers so that the specular glossiness
The SSS image can be composited with a layer
top right and press Alt to place it behind the
matches the object’s (the worm should be
in Linear Dodge (Add) blending mode. Use a
sphere. Set the color to white and the intensity
shinier; the feathers have a broader specular
low Fill value as the effect should be subtle.
to 0.85. Enable Shadow and set the type to Sun.
etc) (Fig.44).
Render it with BPR and save it. Then save the
To create masks that will help you with
Passes
selections, apply a Flat Color material to all
As we have thin, soft bodies like the comb,
subtools. Then apply a color to each subtool
You can composite the three images in
wattles, feet and the earthworm, as well as
in order to easily select them in Photoshop
Photoshop by placing each in a layer with in
back lights, subsurface scattering should be
(Fig.45).
Linear Dodge (Add) blending mode. At the
noticeable. To create a SSS pass, choose the
bottom put a black layer.
Fresnel Overlay material. In the Material menu,
For a material that emulates the reection of the
under Modiers, change the Inner Blend color
sky go to my website and download the Zeoyn_
Enable the rst light bulb and disable the others
swatch to a medium red and the Outer Blend
SkyReect1 MatCap from the Goodies/ZBrush
in the Light menu. Load each of the specular
color swatch to a bright red. Set the Inner Blend
section. Apply it to all the subtools.
project.
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Chapter 03
Chapter 03 | Chicken Armored Beasts To generate several useful passes together with the sky reection, enable Create Maps in the Render menu. In the render settings disable Shadows and enable Aocclusion. Under Bpr Ao increase the rays to 40, set the Res slider to the maximum, Blur to 3 and Gamma to 3.25. Press BPR to render. Go to the Render menu and notice that under the Create Maps option you now have four images. Click on each of them to save the image of the reected sky, the ZDepth, Ambient Occlusion and Alpha.
Use the Ambient Occlusion in a layer with Multiply blending mode set. Place the layer under the specular layers in order not to darken the specular highlights. The sky reection can be added with the Linear Dodge (Add) blending mode and erased/masked to your liking. The ZDepth can be used to create a fog effect or as a mask for a depth of eld effect. Use the alpha image to cut the objects from the background if you want to add a background image ( Fig.46).
I have set a diagram showing all the BPR render passes I have used to put the image together. Each thumbnail shows the render pass after masking and color correction. I’ve also indicated the blending mode used on each pass. You will notice that I had the need to add a few more passes, like a ll light to lighten the shadows, and some effects using some default MatCaps, like Outline and Framer1. It is so easy to create new passes so feel free to experiment and add your own, creating your own style ( Fig.47).
I hope you have enjoyed the tutorial!
Jose Alves da Silva For more from this artist visit: http://www.artofjose.com/ Or contact him at:
[email protected]
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Chapter 03
Armored Beasts Chapter 04 | Gorilla Chapter 04 – Gorilla Software used: ZBrush
When I took on this task, for some reason I was thinking about the polar bear from The Golden Compass movie. For that reason I thought I could use golden armor on the gray gorilla to make it pop-out and shine a bit more. I also thought that I would use the armor of the Mayans and Aztecs to add to the jungle feeling. A lot of 3D artists might struggle to create their own 2D concepts, so what I have done is to demonstrate a technique that I nd helpful in Fig.01. You can gather photos of your subject matter and paint over them in Photoshop to design your armor. It helps to start looking at references at the start of a project anyway.
To create these concepts I painted simple shapes using at color over the photo. Once I had done this I added a little detail and shading by painting over the shape of the armor using the Burn and Dodge tools, making sure I maintained sharp edges. The nal touch was to add some of the red crystals and other details.
When I was satised with the concept I decided
dimensions. It was then just a case of adding
to move on to the next stage and began working
detail using the Clay Buildup brush ( Fig.02).
in 3D. My process from this point was very
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common and is used as standard by many
I like working with this brush because you can
ZBrush artists. I began by using ZSpheres
achieve a variety of details using it, from rough
to create the basic structure and proportions
and big forms to smaller details. After making
of the gorilla. After I had done this I applied
the basic forms I started modeling the hair with
DynaMesh, which meant that I had a base
the Weave 1 brush, with which I was able to
model consisting of polygons of equal sides and
play with the direction of the hair’s ow ( Fig.03).
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Chapter 04
Chapter 04 | Gorilla Armored Beasts
After piling on the detail, I started to think about the nal model. I knew there would be some parts where you wouldn’t be able to see the gorilla because of the armor and therefore these parts wouldn’t require as much detail ( Fig.04).
The next step was to create and add the armor to the gorilla. I did this by creating simple subtools by masking and extracting sections from the gorilla model (Fig.05). I started by looking for at areas on the gorilla’s body that would be suitable to extract from. I then masked the area by pressing Ctrl and drawing on the model. After I had done this I went to the Subtool menu and chose Extract. This helped to extrude the geometry, but at this point it was all wavy and not how I wanted it. To turn these areas into a at hard surface I used brushes like the sPolish brush. After I had done this I used the ClipCurve brush, pressed Ctrl + Shift to activate it and started stretching the lines and forms to make the armor more precise.
When I was happy with how things were turning out I started detailing the armor using a mask. To create the groove detail I created masks and used the Inate option with a negative value to create a dip in the armor’s surface. The nal step was to add some scratches and areas where the armor had been dented and damaged in battle. I did this using the DamStandard and the TrimDynamic brushes.
After nishing the model of the gorilla I started choosing and applying materials to separate the armor pieces from one another. I used standard materials in ZBrush. You can see which materials are attached to which parts in Fig.06.
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Chapter 04
Ar A rmored Beasts Chapter 04 | Gorilla
After organizing the materials I decided to add at color to the model, as I didn’t want to make any textures at this moment. It was something that I was going to do in the nal image.
In Fig.07 Fig.07 you you can see how I painted the details on the armor by using masks. I used the cavity masking option in the Masks menu to help with this. I started by adding the main color, which was pretty close to the color in my concept. I then inverted my mask and added the color for the tarnished metal. To do this I used a gray-like color. Using this same technique I added color to the rest of the image.
At this stage I was happy with how things were going with the color and the materials, so the next step was to put the gorilla in a pose that would look good in the nal image. This model is made from a lot of different subtools, which can make posing difcult. I used the Transpose Master to put the gorilla in the pose I wanted. This way I was able to move the model into position when all the subtools were in their lowest subdivision level. After I was nished with the posing I went to Transpose Master > TPose > SubT to see the model with all of its subtools.
When I was happy with everything I started to think of a good viewpoint and angle to view the model from for my nal image ( Fig.08 ). It Fig.08).
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Chapter 04
Chapter 04 | Gorilla A Ar rmored Beasts helped to visualize what I wanted at this point,
black shadows to be cast because of the strong
as I could then work out all of my future steps.
light, but I knew I could achieve this by playing
I noticed that I needed to make the gorilla’s
with opacities later on in Photoshop ( Fig.10 ). I Fig.10).
weapon and so did that using the same process
also used one bright red/pink front light, with and
I described earlier (Fig.09 (Fig.09). ).
without shadow, and one green side light just to use it as bouncing light that reects the colors
At this point, I had decided on the camera angle
of the jungle. In Fig.10 you can also see all of
and what would be in the background of my
these layers and lights mixed in Photoshop.
image. I knew that I wanted him standing on a rock in front of a dense forest. I also wanted the
In Fig.11 you can see the rest of the work I did Fig.11 you
sun to be setting in the background to make the
in Photoshop. I added the background in three
environment look more dramatic. With this in
steps. In the rst step I added some of the
mind I could start to work on the nal render.
background color using some of the colors that I had used in the lights to tie everything together.
I used one standard light and wax rendering
To do this I used soft brushes.
with the BPR and Shadow on. I wanted sharp
The next step was to turn my attention to the gorilla by adding to his fur and making him look a little more realistic. To do this I used a Smudge brush made of lots of dots to look like individual hairs. I also added a few more specular highlights to the armor using a brush in Dodge mode. In the foreground I added some leaves and foliage to add more depth, and used some photos to start to create the background.
The nal step was to add some clouds and mountains to the background to demonstrate the type of environment these gorillas would live in. I added a little glow to the crystals on the gorilla’s armor and darkened the rock that he is standing on to turn the viewer’s attention to the character more than its environment.
For the nal image I decided to draw the viewer’s attention to the main character by decreasing detail in certain areas. I added some texture overlays to the rock in the foreground and added some subtle, thin clouds to the space between the gorilla and the trees. The nal step was a few color adjustments to make the image a little warmer and then it was done.
Miro Petrov For more from this artist visit: http://soulsart.org/ Or contact him at:
[email protected]
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Chapter 04
Ar A rmored Beasts Chapter 04 | Gorilla
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Chapter 04
Armored Beasts Chapter 05 | Rhino Chapter 05 – Rhino
The quality of the image doesn’t matter too
the sphere and then press the Edit button to
Software used: ZBrush
much as the aim at this stage is to set a goal
be able to start sculpting. In the Tool menu
and an objective that we want to aim for. You
under Geometry, enable DynaMesh. A pop-up
can see the concept for my image in Fig.01.
window will ask you if you would like to freeze
Introduction This tutorial will focus on the creation of an
subdivision levels; you should choose No. The
armored rhino. During the creation process I will
You will notice that a lot of things are already
sphere has now been converted to a DynaMesh,
make extensive use of the tools that were made
suggested in the sketch. The pose is set, the
which is made up of regular quads projected
available in ZBrush 4R2. Some of the features
scenario is dened, the light direction is shown
from the X, Y and Z axis.
in this version of ZBrush make it possible to
but, most importantly, the character’s attitude
unleash the artist’s creativity and makes it
and personality is set. So with the concept in
Press X to enable Symmetry. We will start by
possible to do more with the lighting system. We
place it is time to start.
blocking the shape of the head ( Fig.02). Choose
will be taking advantage of all these goodies.
the Move brush with a large draw size (press
Body – Base
S and adjust the slider) and pull the front of
As a starting point I think it’s important to have a
Open ZBrush, then select the Tool directory
the sphere to create an elongated snout. Also
character sketch, or at least a scribbled idea, as
in Lightbox and double-click the PolySphere.
push the lateral sides inwards to make the head
this keeps the process ordered and structured.
ZTL option. Drag on the document to create
thinner.
Using the SnakeHook brush, pull up the geometry to create a horn in the appropriate place. Don’t pull the whole horn at once; pull a bit at a time. By making the Polyframe visible (Shift + F), you can conrm that the geometry has undergone extreme stretching and the resulting surface is not good for sculpting. As we are in DynaMesh mode, press Ctrl and drag on the background. All the stretched areas will be recomputed with a uniform polygon distribution of the same density as the rest of the model.
You can repeat this procedure as many times as you need. Just take into account that every time you Remesh, some details that are smaller than the grid might get lost/attenuated. DynaMesh is not intended to be the nal surface for the ner details; it is, in fact, a very powerful way to build your sculpting base, which can then be subdivided and sculpted the same as any other ZBrush model.
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Chapter 05
Chapter 05 | Rhino Armored Beasts In my opinion, the best brush for concept sculpting is the Clay Buildup brush. Its strokes create a rough look that is adequate at this point and helps you focus on the masses and planes rather than the details. By pressing Alt when applying the strokes it carves the surface. For Smoothing use the Shift key.
Start sculpting your model using the Clay Buildup brush. In the Brush menu, under Auto Masking, enable BackfaceMask. This means that the strokes do not to affect the opposite side of thin surfaces. In Fig.03 you can see my sculpting sequence.
Start by carving the eye area, then add some volume to where the eyebrows would be and give more shape to the forehead. Continue to rene all of the facial details in this way.
At this point the basic form of the head should be established, so start to add some eshy masses to the cheeks, lip corners, under lip and below the nostrils. Then start to add some ears.
Remesh the model by pressing Ctrl and dragging on the background. Notice how the surface gets smoother and the brush details are smoothed out and lost. This is not the right time to start sculpting tiny details, even if the sculpt is looking nice and smooth. Once this is done spend more time rening the ears and pulling them out further.
You can see how I added the body mass in Fig.04. Select the InsertSphere brush and click and drag at the base of the neck at the symmetry line. Make sure to create a big sphere, which will cover the head. With the Move brush, shape the sphere into a blob that connects with the head at the neck and suggests a belly at the front.
Using the Clay brush, start dening the muscle groups on the body (Fig.05). You should use references if you need help doing this. Create the pectorals by stroking from the center of the
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Chapter 05
Armored Beasts Chapter 05 | Rhino
chest to the shoulder area. Always apply brush
In the Tool menu, under Subtool, choose
clear the mask, then again to remesh, fusing the
strokes in the direction of the muscle bers.
Append and pick the Sphere3D tool. Turn on
pelvis with the legs.
Symmetry by pressing X and Move it to place it To create the arms, select the Curve Tube
under the waistline. With the Move tool, stretch
With the Clay Buildup brush I sculpted the
brush (Fig.06). In front view, apply a brush
the sphere to create a diaper shape. Enable
muscles roughly on the legs so I knew where to
stroke the length of the arm, starting at the
DynaMesh, choose the CurveTube brush and
place the armor (Fig.08).
armpit and moving away at a 45 degree angle.
create a tube starting at the hip with a curve at
Bear in mind that the thickness of the tube is
the knee area. Use the Move brush to shape the
determined by the size of the brush. Using the
legs to roughly dene the thighs, lower legs and
To create the base of the leg armor, choose the
Move brush, shape the tube into the form of a
feet. Press Ctrl and drag on the background to
Curve Surface brush. This brush allows you to
Armor – Base
basic arm in which the arm, forearm and hand are distinguishable.
With the Move brush, pull a thumb and two ngers out of the hand, and press Ctrl and drag to remesh the model. Choose the Clay Buildup brush and create a height difference between the ngers and nails. Carve the palm of the hand and sculpt the larger volumes to make the surface more believable. On the top of the hand dene two knuckles and a at back of the hand.
It is now time to create a base for the lower body (Fig.07). As this body part will be covered in armor I opted to create it as a separate subtool.
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Chapter 05
Chapter 05 | Rhino Armored Beasts
create several curves, which will be connected
armor parts and create vertical curves around
has a lot of horizontal subdivisions compared to
by a surface. Select the brush and, in the Stroke
the knee, keeping them short at the sides of
vertical subdivisions. To x this reduce the Max
menu, enable Snap mode so that the curves
the knee and long at the center of the knee.
Points to 4 and simply adjust any of the curves
stick to the surface when they are drawn. The
Unhide the leg armor and turn off Snap mode to
and the number of curve points will be reduced.
Draw Size of the brush will dene the thickness
manipulate the curves and make them cleaner,
Also, if you reduce your brush size while you are
of the surface and the CurveStep in the Stroke
and so that the surface covers the shin and leg
not over a curve (when the cursor is red), when
menu denes the distance between points in a
armor pieces. Also create an aggressive spike
you click on a curve the thickness of the surface
curve.
at the top of the knee armor.
is changed to match the brush size.
The remaining leg armor will be created using
For the belly protection start by hiding everything
At this point I felt that the arms and head
the same procedure. Select the legs subtool and
except the upper and lower body subtools.
proportions were not matching the concept
create vertical curves around the shin area with
The Curve Surface brush doesn’t allow you to
(Fig.12). To remedy this select the upper body,
the Curve Surface brush (Fig.09).
create a single curve starting at the center that
turn on Symmetry and mask everything except
is symmetrical on both sides. Choose the upper
the arms. In Scale mode place one end of the
To create the knee armor ( Fig.10), turn on Snap
body subtool, disable Symmetry by pressing X
transpose tool at the shoulder joint and the other
mode for the Curve Surface brush. Hide the leg
and enable Snap mode. Once you have done
along the length of the arm, and scale the arms
that draw the rst curve to the right of the center
to make them bigger. Next adjust the head size,
of the body. Then keep drawing curves around
masking it and scaling it to a smaller size.
the belly until you reach the other side. Once again using the Curve Surface brush,
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To adjust the belly armor curves disable Snap
create the forearm protectors by drawing strokes
and move each curve point to make each
perpendicular to the arm length with Snap on.
section perfectly round (Fig.11). You may notice
Adjust the curves with Snap turned off and use
that I used too many points for each curve,
GroupsSplit. Use the Move brush to pull the
which might be a problem later as the surface
edges around the arm.
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Chapter 05
Armored Beasts Chapter 05 | Rhino To create the straps that hold the forearm armor, select the Curve Tube Snap brush (Fig.13). Change the Brush Modier value to 4 (this denes the number of vertexes on the cylinder section). Draw a curve at the forearm. Adjust the curve with the Move brush so that the strap comes from under the armor. Change to Move mode and drag, starting at the strap, to create a transpose tool. Press Ctrl while dragging the inner center circle of the transpose tool to duplicate the strap. Reposition and scale the new strap to t the wrist. Use the Move brush to nalize the adjustment.
The head protection will be created with a different process (Fig.14). Select the upper body subtool and using the Standard brush, press Ctrl while painting on the model to create a mask.
the inner faces and edge faces. Press Ctrl and
slot under Texture Map, but don’t forget to clear
Mask the protection area, leaving the face and
click the interior surface of the hood to isolate
it afterwards.
the ears uncovered. In the Subtool menu go to
this polygroup. Press Ctrl, Shift and drag on the
the Tool menu, set the Thick value to 0.015 and
background to invert the visibility. In the Tool
The creation of the base for the shoulder armor
press Extract. A new subtool will be created for
menu, under Polygroups, click Group Visible.
repeats the Curve Surface technique ( Fig.15).
the hood and if you select it you will notice that
The exterior and edges of the hood are now
Select the upper body subtool and hide the rest.
everything is masked except the borders. Use
part of the same polygroup. Press Ctrl, Shift and
Disable the symmetry because there is a single
the Smooth brush at the borders to make them
click the background to unhide the interior.
shoulder pad. Select the Curve Surface brush
round. Clear the mask (Ctrl and drag) and using
with Snap enabled. Draw the rst curve at the
the Clay Buildup brush with the Backface Mask
In the Plugins menu open the UVMaster. Enable
shoulder near the neck, bearing in mind that this
option enabled, create some folds around the
Polygroups and press Unwrap to generate UVs
curve will be lifted to make the vertical protection
hood. Smooth them with the Smooth brush.
for the hood. By pressing Flatten you can check
(as you can see in the concept sketch). The
the layout of the UVs. Press Unatten to leave.
second curve will be the line that creates the
When you extract a mesh from a mask, ZBrush
If you wish to see a texture applied to check the
edge between the vertical and horizontal areas.
automatically creates different polygroups for
distortion, pick a checker pattern in the image
Keep drawing smaller curves in the direction of the arm to make a point at the end of the shoulder pad.
Disable Snap, make sure Bend is on and lift the vertical protection curve. Manipulate the curves
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Chapter 05
Chapter 05 | Rhino Armored Beasts to match the concept shape. Press GroupsSplit.
Clear the mask. With the Move brush, adjust the
With the Move brush, adjust the overall form.
deformations near the tip. Use the Polish brush to even the surface.
Armor – Detail Select the horizontal part of the shoulder
Using the Curve Pinch brush, create some
protection, hiding the vertical portion. In the
decorative lines along the border of the pad.
Geometry submenu (in the Tool menu) press
Press Alt while creating the curve to create a
Crease. You will notice that the harder edges
pinch inwards. To atten the hard edges use the
now have an inner dotted line, which means that
Trim Dynamic brush.
these edges will not smooth while subdividing
to distortions that will have to be xed and
the geometry. Press Crease again to dene the
Load the Slash2 brush from the Brush > Slash
also because it will help to break the model’s
hard edges on the vertical part. Press Divide
directory in the Lightbox. In the Alpha menu
symmetry. Do not forget to save before you start
four times.
increase Blur to 15 and enable LazyMouse.
the posing process.
With this brush, draw some decorative lines The hard edges hold the form while subdividing,
to simulate extra metal layers on the shoulder
We will use Transpose Master to pose the
which creates the effect we want; however,
pad. To add a few decorative nails choose the
character. However the thin elements that make
next time we subdivide it we don’t want it to do
Standard brush, set it to DragDot mode and pick
up the armor might suffer some distortions when
this, so press Shift and the Uncrease button to
Alpha 06. Adjust the Draw Size to set the size
re-importing the pose back to our model. To
clean all the crease marks. Divide it once more.
and place them along the edge of the panels.
reduce the chances of that happening I would
You will notice that the edges between the two planes are now smoother (Fig.16).
advise that you select each armor subtool, go The techniques used to create the shoulder
to subdivision level 3 and press DelLower to
pad can also be used to create the other armor
discard lower subdivisions.
Mask the central area of the shoulder pad,
parts, which is detailed in the 3DTotal Publishing
excluding the tips. Invert the mask and blur
book ZBrush Character Sculpting: Volume 1
In the Plugins menu (Fig.18) select Transpose
it (press BlurMask in the Masking submenu).
(Fig.17).
Master and choose TposeMesh. ZBrush
Select the Curve Pinch brush and draw a curve
creates a new tool in which all elements are
along the center of the shoulder pad. A crease
Pose
represented at their lowest subdivision level and
is created at the center of the shoulder pad,
I prefer to pose the character before detailing
as part of the same subtool so that they can be
while the mask prevents the tips from deforming.
it any further because the posing will lead
manipulated together.
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Chapter 05
Armored Beasts Chapter 05 | Rhino The process of posing consists of masking parts of the model that stay in place while using the Transpose tool to Move, Rotate and Scale the unmasked area. When dealing with armor bear in mind that the metal pieces should not be distorted, unlike the esh and cloth where it is desirable. So the armor elements should always be completely masked or unmasked, not including any gradients.
Let’s pose the character in a seated position. Turn on Symmetry X. Unmask the whole leg and all its armor pieces, and rotate it forward in a side view. Change to a bottom view and rotate the legs outwards using the same mask. Then unmask everything from half of the belly down and rotate the lower body to the front so that the character’s back can lie against the chair. Unmask only the belly protector and rotate it upwards to avoid intersecting the thighs. Unmask the legs again and rotate the thighs further forward. Unmask the lower leg, including the knee protection, and rotate it to make a 90 degree angle with the thigh. Unmask the feet and their armor, and rotate them forward in order for them to lie at on the oor.
The rest of the pose will not be symmetrical, so send the changes to the main model to check if everything went as planned. In the Transpose Master menu choose Tpose > SubT. The model should be posed and some intersections might happen between the eshy elements and armor,
left arm. Unmask the head and rotate it further
left lower leg and rotate it to the front. Rotate
which can be easily xed with the Move brush.
left and a bit up. Unmask the left arm and raise
the foot to make it more parallel to the ground.
If you have projection problems with any of the
it (expect the worst deformations to happen
In the Transpose Master menu choose Tpose >
armor elements, just open the tool you saved,
while placing the arm in this position). Unmask
SubT to transfer the pose to your model.
select the part that needs to be replaced and
the left forearm and bend it inwards from the
append it to the posed model. Then move and
elbow. Unmask the hand and bend it further
The next step is to correct the deformations that
rotate the piece to put it in place and delete
inward to create the joint at the wrist. Unmask
resulted from the posing process ( Fig.20). Use
the deformed one. As the armor pieces are not
the right forearm (starting at half of the forearm
the Move brush to reposition volumes and the
deformed this is easy to do.
and blurring the mask) and twist it together with
Clay Buildup brush to reshape the muscles and
the forearm protectors. Unmask the entire right
cloth. The deformations in your model might be
Initiate the Transpose Master again ( Fig.19).
forearm and bend it from the elbow to make it
very different from the ones in mine.
Now we will take care of the asymmetrical parts
at 90 degrees with the arm. Unmask the right
of the pose. Unmask everything from half the
arm and rotate it to bring it closer to the body.
The left hand will be holding a chalice, so let’s
belly up and tilt the upper body to his right. From
Unmask the right lower leg in front view and
position the ngers accordingly. Unmask the
a top view, rotate the body to face towards his
rotate it inside to a relaxed position. Unmask the
lower nger and rotate it towards the palm.
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Chapter 05
Chapter 05 | Rhino Armored Beasts
Unmask half of the nger and rotate it some
the tightness of the strap. Now you can start to
breakdown of how the props were created can
more towards the palm. Unmask the thumb and
work on the wrinkles on the head ( Fig.24).
be found in the 3DTotal Publishing book ZBrush Character Sculpting: Volume 1 .
rotate it out so it can help grip the object.
Props Details
I then created the props such as the skull, cups,
Painting
Now the character is posed it is a good time to
axe and chair using many of the tools that I
The model was polypainted using only the
add the straps that hold the shoulder and belly
mentioned earlier (Fig.25 – 27). A detailed
Standard brush and a series of alphas. To do
protectors (Fig.21).
To create the eyes choose Append from Tool > Subtool and pick Sphere3D (Fig.22). Select the sphere subtool and scale it down. Move it to the eye location. To duplicate the eye, press Ctrl and drag the center of the transpose tool in Move mode. Place it at the other eye location. Select the hood subtool and subdivide it twice. Using the Clay Buildup brush, detail the folds and don’t be afraid to exaggerate them as the chain mail texture we are about to apply will reduce their impact.
In the Tool menu, under Surface, click on Noise. The Noise Maker interface will open. There is a small sphere icon on the lower left corner of the model view. Click on it and load the alpha image of the tileable chain mail (downloadable from Pixologic’s website in the Alpha library under Patterns). Enable UV so that the pattern is applied according to the UVs we have set before. Reduce the Scale to 0.048. Set Strength to -0.47 and ColorBlend to 0.8. Set the color of the right color palette to black and press OK.
One important detail is the way that the straps interact with the body esh ( Fig.23). With the Clay Buildup brush, carve the area in which the strap and body make contact. Then sculpt the borders of the esh to make them bulge from
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Chapter 05
Armored Beasts Chapter 05 | Rhino this you simply need to enable RGB and disable
Select the upper body subtool. Start by choosing
the eyes, nails, nostrils, lips and nipples. Also
Zadd so the brush paints rather than sculpts. In
a beige color in the color picker and choose Fill
darken the color slightly around the muscle
my opinion the best base materials for painting
Object from the Color menu. Change to Spray
forms. Use DragRect mode and a dark brown,
are SkinShade4 and MatCap White01, so
mode, with a dark brown color, and pick Alpha
and choose some armor damage alphas
alternate between the two while painting as the
08. Paint randomly over the surface with low
(download them from the Pixologic website,
specularity of Skin_Shade4 might interfere a bit
intensity to create some color variation. With a
under Alphas > Effects). Drag them over the
with your perception while painting.
higher intensity, paint the darkest spots around
skin to add stains.
To enhance the sculpted wrinkles, in Tool > Masking choose Mask by Cavity and invert the mask. Press Ctrl + H to make the mask invisible while you paint. Use a dark color with low intensity and a large brush to paint over the model to reveal the detail. Use the Standard brush with Alpha 58 to paint the bers along the horn and nails (Fig.28).
This same technique was used for all the different parts of the model.
Composition Create a new project and in the Document menu, set the document size to 1200 x 1500 (Fig.29). Choose pure black on the color swatch and choose the Back swatch in the Document menu to make the background black. Also set the Range slider to 0 to eliminate the gradient.
Load the rhino tool into the document, press Edit and turn on Perspective. In the Draw menu set the Angle of View to 30. Set the view of the model to what you think is best. In the Movie menu enable Show under Timeline for the camera timeline to show at the top of the screen. Click anywhere on the timeline to create a key frame that will store the current view. This way you can go back to this exact view every time you click on the key frame in case you need to change the view for editing.
Remember that from this moment on you should save your project (File > Save) and not just your tool, otherwise you will lose all your work.
Lights and Materials The lights and materials should be developed at the same time and tested as often as possible
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Chapter 05
Chapter 05 | Rhino Armored Beasts to make sure they work well together. For a detailed breakdown of the lighting and materials setup, take a look at the 3DTotal Publishing book ZBrush Character Sculpting: Volume 1.
Render When the model and material were ready it was time to make the nal render ( Fig.30). In the Render menu, in Render Properties, enable AOcclusion. Under Bpr Ao increase the number of Rays to 20, set Angle to 160, Res to the max and Blur to 2 in order for the ambient occlusion to have higher quality.
In Render Properties, raise the Details value to 3 and set the Materials Blend-Radius to 1 so that ZBrush slightly blurs the frontier between
Final touches
painted on another layer to enhance the mood.
different materials.
After saving the image you can do a few nal
To nalize the image, use some smoke photos
touches in Photoshop (Fig.31). Adjust the
from a texture site and set them to Screen
Press BPR to render the image. After the image
Levels to make the image brighter and increase
blending mode to create the smoky fog and the
is rendered, the different render passes show
Saturation to make the colors more vivid. Blend
steam coming out of the chalice.
under BPR RenderPass. You can click on
the horizon with the background color. Paint
each of the image icons to save the Shaded
some subtle light beams coming from the top-
Fig.32 shows the nal image. I hope you found
render, the ZDepth buffer, the isol ated shadows,
right corner with a soft brush and blending mode
the tutorial interesting and enjoy using some of
Ambient Occlusion pass and the mask (alpha).
set to Screen. Some dust particles can also be
the features of ZBrush 4R2.
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Chapter 05
Jose Alves da Silva For more from this artist visit: http://www.artofjose.com/ Or contact him at:
[email protected]
Armored Beasts Chapter 06 | Cat Chapter 06 – Cat
and see where it takes me. Sometimes it might
Software used: ZBrush
look like the most awesome thing ever, and
software into ZBrush, do a ReMesh All and
sometimes it might look like terrible.
project the old geometry for a more accurate
My name is Christopher Brändström and I’m
• Import a rough mesh from the other
shape
a freelance character/creature artist in the
Usually when sculpting, I start off with a model
movie, commercial and gaming industry. What I
from my library. If you’re creating concepts
software into ZBrush and use ZBrush
want to show in this tutorial is a very basic, but
you’re not trying to show your skills as a lighting
Topology to create a new topology, vertex
effective, workow covering how to do a basic
artist, modeler or texture artist. You’re trying to
by vertex.
concept process in ZBrush and composition in
show off an image as a whole picture. So why
Photoshop. I’m going to give some pointers on
waste time creating something from scratch?
• Import a rough mesh from the other
• Create something from scratch using ZSpheres.
what to think about and what to avoid, and look at using some additional software, to make a
When creating this armored cat-animal, I
Now with DynaMesh, you can just start working
nice-looking nal concept image.
thought I’d show how easy it is to create
off of a sphere. Stretch and pull it however you
something from scratch using ZBrush R3b,
like, run DynaMesh and continue working with a
rather than using models from my library.
nice, clean and even topology. Also, make sure
Usually when I start working on a concept I need to have a general idea about what I want
to check the Projection button, so you can keep
to create. The wonderful thing with concepts is
Before the DynaMesh function in ZBrush, you
that during your creation process, you are most
had more or less four options to get started with
likely going to stumble upon something that
a fairly even topology:
might change your image radically; something that you initially didn’t think of. This happens to
the detailed work when DynaMeshing.
Important: Make sure your mesh has the proper scale. If the scale is too big, you might
• Create a mesh with an even topology in
end up with millions of polygons on the lowest
me almost every time and I just simply go with it
software like Maya and import to ZBrush
DynaMesh resolution, which makes it hard for
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Chapter 06
Chapter 06 | Cat Armored Beasts you to work. Always check this before you start working (Fig.01).
At this point I’ve gone through a couple of head designs using DynaMesh; starting off with one head, duplicating it, creating another and so on. Usually I use layers when creating different shapes from a single mesh, to keep the scenes small and easy to use. Since DynaMesh creates a new topology every time you use it, the layer function won’t work and you’ll have to duplicate the mesh instead.
After looking through the designs I choose to go with the rst, more alien-looking head. My idea at this point is to make the armor natural, made out of the skeleton of the creature. I use the Clay Buildup, Insert Cylinder, Polish and ClipCurve brushes to achieve this result ( Fig.02).
I’m still using DynaMesh quite heavily when creating the body. I have the head as a separate subtool and the body was initially just a sphere like the head was.
Before DynaMesh, I didn’t use the SnakeHook brush as heavily as I do now. It has a tendency to create really cool, owing shapes, but it always messed up the topology because of that. Now that’s no longer a problem with DynaMesh.
As I did with the holes in the head, I use the Insert Cylinder brush with a negative option, which means instead of adding a cylinder when using DynaMesh it creates a Boolean, a hole, instead. I do this by holding down Alt when
inserting the cylinder and then using DynaMesh
I continue to work on the body, using the Polish
(Fig.03).
brush more heavily now, to create harder edges and combining the organic feel with the Clay
I’ve now started adding more detail to the body.
Buildup brush.
I’m still leaving the head as it is, since I don’t
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really want to add any more detail at this point. I
When adding the muscles I start to see the
may have already added too much, considering
model as a whole and it gives me doubts about
I’m still not sure which direction it is heading.
whether I’m actually going in the right direction.
page 66
Chapter 06
Armored Beasts Chapter 06 | Cat It’s denitely alien, but is it really an alien cat or
the Transpose tool to work more on the rotation
an alien something else (Fig.04)?
of the body. Now it feels more like a cat/panther, but the head is a bit out of place, as I’ve
So I decide to remove most of the features on
removed all of the hard-skeleton features on the
the body, because it’s started to feel more like
body, using the ClipCurve brush. So I take off
an alien dinosaur than an alien cat. I know that
the head and replace it with one of the previous
I will be adding fur later on, but that doesn’t
ones I’ve made.
mean it will look any more cat-like. So I go back a couple of steps and start to look at the overall
To get the armor on the back, I simply take the
features again, but I still keep the head. I use
head, duplicate it, use the ClipCurve brush quite
extensively on it and nalize it with DynaMesh and the ClayPolish feature, to enhance the harder edges a bit. This keeps the feel of the head armor owing to the armor on the body, with a few alterations, of course ( Fig.05).
After duplicating the body armor pieces a couple of times and moving it around on the body, I’m starting to feel more satised with the shape. At this point I’m starting to think more about what the nal image will look like, so I tilt the head up a little to make the creature look a bit more aggressive and present. I also start having fun with the tail using the SnakeHook brush, trying to get a long, swirly and interesting shape (Fig.06).
Since this is a cat-like animal, it needs fur. Of course, there are cats that don’t have fur and maybe I can make a concept like that too, but for this tutorial I want to make it a bit more obvious that it is a cat-like animal over anything else. Also, this will give me the opportunity to have some fun and try out ZBrush’s FiberMesh feature that came with the R2b update.
I will not go into any real detail to what settings I’m using in FiberMesh, but like most things in ZBrush, FiberMesh uses the scale and polygon density of the model, so your settings might change from model to model. Basically what I do is focus, once again, on the overall shape of the fur and not every single little detail, since that can easily be changed with a few simple brush strokes on the nal image. This gives me the option to use the ZBrush fur (which can be
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Chapter 06
Chapter 06 | Cat Armored Beasts exported as proper geometry) in the nal image or simply use it as a reference (Fig.07).
Alright, so now with the model done, I want to start looking more into the composition and look of the nal image. For that I usually use modo because of the extremely simple realtime rendering and pre-made materials. I know a lot of people who use ZBrush, V-Ray, Maya or KeyShot for this. As I wrote at the beginning of this tutorial, what I’m trying to do is to create a concept, not to show off how good I am at tweaking material sliders or sculpting wrinkles that will never be visible anyway (unless, that is specically what I’m aiming to show).
I import the model into modo and start moving it around, along with a camera and other models, to nd an interesting composition (Fig.08).
When I nally have the composition that I’m most pleased with, I start adding materials to the different models and also start creating a render layer. They will help me separate the materials, and add depth, mask, etc., when compositing it later on in Photoshop (Fig.09).
So this is what the nal image looks like, after having worked on it in Photoshop ( Fig.10).
What you need to keep in mind when doing a concept for a client or for your own personal portfolio, is time and what is it that you really want to show. You could spend weeks on completing a concept (this might be ne on rare occasions); I prefer to spend a maximum of 1-2 days on a concept, like this one. So the reason I didn’t start painting textures in ZBrush, was
client wants something a different color, the skin
heads I did, than spend a week or two on an
because I was creating a concept image, not a
to have a different type of texture etc.
image that might be dismissed in 10 seconds and then not have anything more to show.
turntable or animation, just an image. If I take this image I just made for example, By doing this I can spend more time working
the client might feel that it’s too detailed and
on an overall rough shape and do the really
too nal for him/her to give any feedback on.
Christopher Brändström
intricate detailing in 2D instead of 3D, but still
Therefore it’s very important to spend the right
For more from this artist visit:
be able to use the lighting, shadows and some
amount of time on the right type of image. I’d
http://www.badrobots.se/
colors from the 3D models. This makes it easier
rather create 4-5 images in a week that give the
Or contact him at:
for me to change something, in cases where the
client a lot of options, like the different types of
[email protected]
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page 68
Chapter 06
Even some of the most modern forms of art are inuenced by traditional techniques, methods and styles. With the arrival of ZBrush came an opportunity to put into practice many of the techniques that were used in classical sculpture by sculptors from some of the most recognizable periods in world history. In this tutorial series Rafael Ghencev will dissect the history of Greek and Roman sculpture and show you how to create an image in that style. Not only will Rafael talk you through the sculpting, but will also show how to texture and present your sculpt in a classical style. This series will also give some great anatomy tips, and provide you with some great tricks to help you present your sculpts. Original Author: 3DTotal.com Ltd | Platform: ZBrush | Format: DOWNLOAD ONLY PDF | Pages:
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