Skin Deep

So I've added some spec maps to the face, and cleaned up some issues I didn't like in the texture. The color on the ears is still a little off, it's the back scatter map I think. I have the feeling I'm constantly going to adjust the 6 texture maps that make up the skin shader until this project is done. I'm liking the overall look however.

I'm hoping to add some eyelashes and eyebrows next. Eye liner looked weird without eyelashes so that's not in the texture yet.

I don't like Ed's skin shader very much, think I may go back and adjust after I'm done this project.

Another new one

Just started this head the other night. I just started the skin about 4 hours ago, I think it's coming along, little yellow on top of the forehead. There is pretty much zero spec on face right now, because it's a WIP and I still have to create those maps. The skin so far is entirely hand painted.

Right now there is Zero poor detail and very little other details like moles, wrinkles etc. Also she's not wearing any makeup.

Tomorrow I will create some spec maps, fine tune the texture, fix some modeling things that are bugging me, and add in details.

Playing with zbrush renders

So, I've been zbrushing this week, working on hard surface modeling by doing some tutorials. I've been improving zbrush renders, fix the bad lighting, improve the existing shaders by tweaking material values, etc... So I've redid the renders on some fast sculpts.

I think this zbrush render looks a lot better than the first Sanjuro, I was using an older file too, so you'll notice there's some more detail too, hehe.


So the next thing I need to do in terms of rendering, is figure out how to add multi-materials into the shader, so i can seperate the hair and skin.


This is just another render of the Downey head, with the skin material I was tweaking.

Fast Sculpting Robert Downey Jr. part deux

So I kicked in another hour on the Downey head, added a goatee and cleaned some stuff up. The key images I was using for a face pose had a furrowed brow, but I decided to give him more of a neutral brow line in the end and adjusted the eye shape accordingly. I kept the smirk tho.

Detailed the hair and gave him a goatee. I'm not going to take this sculpt any further. Total time was about 6 1/2 hours.

Fast Sculpting Robert Downey Jr.

So here is a fast sculpt of Robert Downey Jr. I'm not entirely happy with it, a big part of Downey is his eyes, he's got fairly large eye lashes that help open them up. Also I don't have him with any stubble or facial hair which is a big part of his likeness. I think I'll throw about another hour on him today and clean up the shirt, and maybe add some facial hair.

Here is the progression of his sculpt;


Just about Final, shirt needs detailing and maybe some facial hair.


Base mesh roughed into his head shape.


Subdivided the mesh twice, refined his features. Added pupils to his eyes to help shape the eyes. Here his eyes are too small and beady, there also to far apart. Shape of the head is too long.


Changed up the head shape, subdivided the mesh one step. Here I added the shirt, the geo I extracted from the base mesh.


So more shaping of the head here, started forming the hair a little better and added some asymmetry to the model.


Subdivided the mesh even further and started adding wrinkles, continually tweaking the head shape and eye shape through all these steps.


This is where the mesh is at now, started HD sculpting (further subdivision of the mesh) for added wrinkles and pores.

Fast Sculpting Sanjuro

Sanjuro is a wandering Ronin, made popular by the movie of the same name by Akira Kurosawa.




So the modeling took about 5 hours and then I had tweaked it as I did the texturing which took about another 3 to 4 hours. So basically a one day head. This texture is all hand painted which is my second attempt at a non photo projected surface.

I started his clothing and spent about a 1/2 hour on it so far, he has his hands tucked into his shirt (must be a Samurai thing). I haven't decided if I am going to continue with this project. If I do it will be a strictly Zbrush project that will be the entire character posed, as his clothing should be fun. There are some things I don't like about the head, like his top lip, positioning of the ears, the lower eye lids, ear is pretty lazy too :p.

It's late I'll post more tomorrow for the one or two people who actually check my blog...

Fast Sculpting Dr. Horrible

Okay, so I've been banging out some fast sculpts. Basically a fast sculpt to me, is a head that takes about 1 to 5 hours depending on what I'm doing. Some fast sculpts may turn into a future project, the overall object is achieve a likeness of the character then forget it and move on to another project. Most fast sculpts are not textured.



This is Dr. Horrible a character played by TVs very own Neil Patrick Harris. Kind of a campy fun fella. I like where this sculpt went and I'm going to continue with this project. I haven't sculpted in the hair here on purpose and will most likely be reshaping the top of his head as it may be a tad too large :D.

So this sculpt took me about 3 1/2 hours to get to this point and about another half hour for his clothing (geo was extracted from the head mesh as a starting point). I spent about 2 or 3 hours sculpting the goggles however I scrapped them and built a mesh in Maya (not seen here).

Ya, okay it's been awhile

Been awhile working on lots of different things in Zbrush, been trying to get the hang of hard surfaces. I'm finding it easier to lay down a base mesh in Maya and bring it into Zbrush when dealing with non organic objects.

While the technique of grabbing a ball and mushing it around to create a sculpt can yield pleasant results I'm finding that the line flow ends up sucking and you kind of fight with the surface a lot. So you then do a retopology of the surface, but at that point why didn't I just whip up a quick base mesh to start...


So this model is the start of a halfling warrior. The armor was extracted off the surface of his body, and then I used different polishing brushes to harden up the surface. If you look at the piece of armor on the top of the shoulder its warping a bit and isn't totally flat where I want it totally flat. I'm thinking if I retopo it I can control the line flow better to the edging that I want to achieve.

His skin texture was my first effort at hand painted skin (the eyebrows were projected from a photo and looks like poop :p). The best CG skin I've seen uses the hand painted technique, so I'm gonna learn it :). His head is too wide right now, which is an easy fix.

So I have about 3 days invested in this character, (there's a body and a lot more armor). However the design for his armor sucks and the head is meh, so scrapping this guy. I will revisit the idea after I find a decent armor design. If you have any decent armor designs please drop a comment or MSN me.