In the previous posts, I mentioned about utilizing more subtools and adding cloth to my model. So, this time round, I’m going to try and design a character that fulfills all those above.
The subject of the day is:
Design And Model A Male Character!
=============================================
STAGE ONE | The Base Mesh
=============================================
Again starting from the SuperAverageMan, cropped the head, and started detailing. After getting the rough facial feature that I wanted with Move and Inflat tool at Subdivision 1, I subdivided into a much higher subdivision and start giving rough details to the face with the Clay Tube brush without any Alpha selected. After that I smoothed them out before refining them again with other brushes (Dam Standard, Inflat etc).
Sculpting the head from base mesh
Appended eyes to the head, subdividing it once more for finer details.
Detailing the head
Again using Alex’s human base mesh, I appended it to the head and start Moving things around. This rough body mesh will be used as the foundation and guide for other subtools. Rigged a ZSphere and retopologized it to create the shawl.
Continuing the body
Midway through this, I found another awesome post by Mike Jensen on hard surface sculpting that he did for his Halo Elite armor. I’m really amazed by how he did his Elite armor so I tried to practise it on some part of the model.
I tried it on the waist. In my first few attempts, I tried using some of the planar tools. Didn’t really like the way it came out. Tried to sculpt it with dam brush using LazyMouse. Not really that satisfactory. In the end I used the Layer brush with Z Sub to draw the lines. Not really that spectacular but it works, for now at least.
Added a few more objects to it.
Trying to sculpt hard surface
=======================================================
STAGE THREE | Texturing
=======================================================
Now its time to polypaint it!. This time, instead of using the texture to define wrinkles etc, I’m using the texture only for the basic skin material. I’ve already defined the wrinkles using the Alpha brushes during sculpting. Using some skin textures, I painted in the blemishes etc using the DragRect stroke.
Colouring the AverageMan
And the end result is pretty satisfactory.
SuperAverageMan-Front
SuperAverageMan-Back
Testing out some of the rendering options in ZBrush. For the render below, I doubled the document size then resized it. Results are okay, still playing around with the settings.
Testing rendering of the man in Zbrush
P.s. : There are no eyeballs for this model because at the moment of sculpting I still haven’t learn how to add subtools yet.
Okay, now that I’ve settled down in Melbourne, lets get started again! I’m going to start by sculpting something simple to warm up.
=======================================================
STAGE ONE | The Base Mesh Sculpting
=======================================================
No building a base mesh from ground up here. Took the SuperAverageMan subtool in ZBrush and start morphing him!
Morphing SuperAverageMan
Not much planning here, just trying to take the default model and turn it into something else. Playing around, mainly, with Move and Inflat brush (as I learnt in The Making of No More Wine by Simon Blanc). Using the Damien Standard brush to carve out the wrinkles. Standard brush for the veins. Move tool to make big changes to the model. And Inflat brush to bring out the form of the head.
Aging the AverageMan
Once I’m satisfied with the head, I added alphas to the head with the leather alphas I downloaded from the previous model.
Recapping my previous attempt at ZBrush, the end results looks flat and lacks details. So this time, I purposely sculpt only the head and concentrate on having a consistent subdivisions. Instead of using textures to bring out the character, this time, I’m adding more details using the Alpha brushes.
Adding more details
