Wolf Study

Used an anatomy study as an excuse to try out stylized fur. No symmetry used for added difficulty. Here are a bunch of random renders ~

Some comps of zbrush BPR renders

Adventures in Retopology

Been working on 3D stuff lately. Converted one of my creature sculpts into a game ready model and finally got around to rendering a rusty old viking sword I've had sitting on my computer for a while.

Textured the creature in zbrush with polypaint, and used ddo/Quixel suite to texture the sword and the base on which the creature stands.

Hasty photoshop paint-over to establish the color scheme before getting into polypainting.

Zbrush renders of the final high poly.

Maps and wireframe! Didn't establish a hard poly limit for this guy so I mostly just did what I felt necessary to retain silhouette and detail during baking.

Scalloped Ox / Rivet Heads

Mini creature project. I've had the idea for these guys knocking around in my head for a while so I decided to sculpt them. Eventually I'll turn this into a game ready model, but for now I've posed them for a fun paint-over to test out lighting and coloration.

Reference! I didn't have this while sketching but it's useful for sculpting details. These creatures pull mostly from tortoises but there's some crab and squid in there too. The Scalloped Oxen as they are currently called are large reptilian omnivores distantly related to tortoises. They thrive in a variety of warm climates, surviving in lean times via fatty stores beneath their flexible external carapaces. They travel in herds with a social structure similar to that of wild horse bands, the lead males of these herds attempt to add females to their ranks through showy displays and by battering rivals with their armored necks.

Zbrush sculpts posed with Transpose Master and bpr rendered.

Zbrush Noodling

Been absent for a while, I should really try to update this blog more regularly than in the spurts it receives. As per usual, this is older stuff, just trying to catch up. 

Practicing scales with Arrogath, an old character of mine. Gonna try and do maybe a crocodile study later and try out some different methods of making scales. This was all done by hand without using alphas and I think it looks a little unnatural as a result, albeit these scales are based on pangolins, not reptiles.

A rough bust I sculpted live during the 3D Printer World Expo in Bellevue that I was invited to.

Tiny printed manbat!

Deer God Renders

I used this recent zbrush sculpt to test out my different rendering options. Which essentially equates to me meddling around for far too long and figuring out how to get the lighting to do what I want. Sculpting is one thing but actually getting the small details to show up is another. The bust itself started out as a dynameshed sphere.

Renders in Zbrush, which are quicker to generate but not as realistic in terms of how light actually works. The images themselves are generated as psd's whereas I can get tiffs out of keyshot.

The rest are renders from keyshot.

Straight keyshot renders. The image on the left provides the lighting direction and deep shadows, the one on the right is used to fill in any surface detail lost in said shadows. 

Taking the vanilla renders into photoshop. I darkened the second image and brought out more detail by overlaying it on top of itself as multiply and overlay layers until it matched the first image in terms of value. Then both images are placed overtop each-other and I mask out the features I want to discard. That along with high-passes, level adjustments and the usual tweaking produce the image below. Still not entirely what I was after but I think I'm getting close.

Zbrush Creature Design

Followed along with a Gnomon workshop by Jerad Marantz that covered creature creation using zbrush and keyshot. 

Quick initial concept.

Reference! My ideas were all over the place and I think it shows in the design. I was pretty eager to get started and didn't spend as long figuring out what I wanted to do as I should have. 

Finished Model.

Slapped on some colour and overlay layers in photoshop to test out colour schemes. Settled on a mixture of hippopotamus and rhinoceros. 

Polypainting in Zbrush

Posing using Transpose Master

Renders straight out of Keyshot using hdr images

The final results after plenty of manipulation, tweaking of render passes, and over-painting.

If only I could have come up with a proper name for this guy. Rendering out a turn table soon, whether or not that turntable will be rendered with Zbrush or Keyshot depends on how long I'm willing to go without use of my computer (Keyshot takes forever).

More Zbrush

Well, finished up my school's Zbrush class and it certainly was a fun first foray into the program. Maybe one day I'll figure out how to render things nicely, I feel like my lack of lighting skill within it really destroyed whatever I managed to sculpt.

Oh look a dragon! Started sculpting Arro for fun. No teeth, spikes or extreme detail yet. Still messing around with proportions, and will probably increase his wingspan. He's proving to be an educational experience when it comes to fully realizing hexapodal anatomy. I've always had an idea of how the musculature for a dragon would wrap around the body, and have done plenty of anatomical sheets in profile, but putting it into a 3D format certainly helps cement the spatial relationships in my mind.

Palapunctor Sculpt

Been working on a sculpt of a creature of mine for my zbrush class. Based it on the Lightning Lure/Palapunctor and sketched him in a spiffy pose and a little costume. I've a ways left to go yet, more detailing, pose refinement, color and something for him to stand on.