Zbrush - Arm Study

 This week's assignment was pretty straightforward, arm anatomy study. I first looked up quite a bit of reference material which included, photos, construction drawings, and 3D sculpt renders. Then before jumping into Zbrush I went through about 20-30 minutes of pre sketching. For me, this is the most important phase of design. It bridges the gap between looking at reference and jumping into software. The biggest challenge I tackled was to simplify the forms and really understand the overlapping shapes/insertion points.

Reference:

Here are the final renders! I had a lot fun with this actually. In prior assignments I tend to get frustrated whenever I step away from the modeling phase, so to be able to just go nuts with sculpting was a blast. 

Final Presentation Sheet:

Zbrush - Rhino Assignment

The final render with a splash of color and texture. I was trying to polypaint him, but just couldn't get the colors I wanted.

Zbrush - Bonsai Tree

For this week's assignment we were instructed to do an "architectural" asset. This didn't technically have to be a piece of architecture, so I decided to do a bonsai tree.

Fun Stuff:

As usual, I really really enjoyed the sculpting phase of this assignment. It was also my first time using zpheres, which was a blast. They're not only a great way to dive in, but also they're pretty easy to get the hang of.  This project was the first time I took advantage of subtools as well, which kept workflow quite a bit more organized.

Problems/Challenges:

Fibermesh. I spent the most time fussing over this. What's so frustrating about this tool is how much control they give you. The results can be amazing, but for newbies like myself it's a headache and a half. After struggling with it for several hours I eventually got the model to the point where I could let photoshop tighten up the loose ends. But like polypainting, I still want to get a grasp of fibermesh for future sculpts.

Reference:

Final Pres Sheet:

I definitely plan on coming back to this guy and incorporating some more smaller details to really set it off. From what I saw from the many tutorials on fibermesh, its a worthwhile tool that I want work with again. I learned a lot during this assignment and found that the only frustrations I had was because I was trying to incorporate too many technical tricks. I think for my best results I need to hold back on what I choose to learn about. I'm still getting accustomed to the software and diving too deep into the technical side of it tends to leave me with unhappy results. 

Rhino Assignment WIP

Last week's assignment was a to modify a rhino sculpt and I chose to do an Eobasileus study. I was super excited to jump in with this. The initial sculpting was definitely the most fun. I really enjoyed using just a few brushes to get the general forms nailed down.

Now for the problems. I was working with my sculpt not realizing how important it would be to keep my lower subdivisions. As I got to my transposing phase, I could no longer move my mesh around without experiencing severe lag. This led to several headaches late into the game. However, I pushed ahead.

The other big issue I had was of course my arch-nemesis, polypaint. I work primarily as a concept artist so when I don't have the kind of control that I have in photoshop, I tend to get a little cranky. Regardless of my initial dissent, I did dive into polypaint. Currently that is my last step for polishing up my rhino.

Reference Images:

WIP File:

I still have some more work ahead of me for this guy. I definitely want to go in and sculpt some more skin details. As of now Im trying to get the polypaint to work nicely. Once I nail that the updated textures will follow.