Hard surface project work on a space craft orientated design. I’ve forgotten how much I love designing hardsurface vehicles. Conceptualizing in Zbrush, creating all sorts of shapes and forms is fast and fun. I’ve still much improvement to make, I’m going to work this design further and polish it’s hard surface edges further. I’m still adding details. It might be time to start playing with insert mesh brushes.
More hard surface design fun!
I sculpted a character quickly for the purposes of this exercise. I guess he’s turning into a warrior of sorts. He’s a belly, horns, two eyes (behind what will be a visor) and a heavily armored crotch. I’ll need to think up a story background for him.
I played alot with polygroups and polishing workflows and had some good experiences utilizing panel loops. I’m happy with the direction he is going in. I’ve still more to do, but now that I have foundations to work on, I can push forwards. I’m getting addicted to hard surface work in Zbrush! I’ve recently received a Shapeways 3D print on an earlier creature design I did as a test. I’ll post the results shortly. I’m tempted to make a quick figurine series based on this fella.
Last Life drawing class before Christmas. That means it’s wine, beer, cheese and chocolate time!
Warmup Drawings, approx 1 min each (A2 original size, using pastel)
Following a wine drinking session, we finished the class with a series of brush and ink drawings, each at 1 min. A fun class.
Back at it again! Short sessions, but worth it.
1 minute warmup drawings:
30 minute sustained:
Hard surface sculpting and modelling in Zbrush.
The key focus on this project was mesh extraction and working with polygroups. I used Shadowbox to draft out the initial shape of a cowboy boot. Using masking and mesh extraction I was able to pull out the individual parts of the boot to be assembled later. I added a few secondary details. I used a lot of smoothing, standard and Soft and hard polishing methods. I have ticked off the key areas of this exercise, but if I was going to push it forward I’d starting adding detailed to the sculpt such as creases, stitching and decal designs. One of the reference images I used was crocodile skin, so might be interesting to see that implemented in future.
This is creature concept version 2.0.
I wanted to integrate some of the techniques Peter showed us during one of our previous classes. During my recent crit, it became clear I’m going to need to work back into the design and streamline some areas. The horns for example are perhaps too sophisticated relative to other parts of the creature. I’m also toying with the idea now of taking away the eyes completely. Peter’s guidance was fantastic. I’ll be reworking this guy, so an update will follow soon.
Kit bashing exercise utilising Insert Sphere techniques.
Still pushing on facial anatomy. Learning lots of new Zbrush workflows. This fella is based on John Hurt and he needs work. It probably didn’t help that I used several different reference images, based during different times in John’s life. The reason for this in part was to figure out his key architectural areas, namely the jaw and overal facial proportions. The Doctor Who 50th is coming up, so why not?! 😀 Polishing techniques need work, but I’m improving. I’m beginning to use both Soft and hard polish brushes along with different in-bed settings. There are still subtle plane changes going on despite some of the more defined details.
I’ve been advised by Nate at Zbrush Workshops to try a slightly younger subject for my next exercise. Good advice I reckon. I’ll return to this fella soon enough.
It’s that time of year again when it’s time to sculpt a scarey pumpkin! This fella isn’t finished yet, I reckon there’s something…. living inside…
petercooperstudio.com 