SeithCG

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have lots of difficulty working with Zbrush. I find its interface and idiosyncrasies absolutely horrendous. I basically have to re-learn the software every time I let it rest for a while and then come back to it. So over the week-end I thought “Let’s try Mudbox”. So I did this little frog-thing here…

The result is: I much prefer Mudbox’s interface and workflow, but it is obvious that it’s not as full-featured as Zbrush. As to the sculpt itself, it’s supposed to be a foot-soldier of some sort, so I’ll have to finish painting it and maybe bang up a props or two. I’ll soon post a picture of the process I followed to quickly block it out…

This time I tried a portrait (quite different from the generic monster, you’ll agree) and was able to get there in about 2 hours. I feel like I’m starting to get a hold of it. Sculptris truly is a fantastic tool to quickly sketch an idea from scratch without having to plan anything ahead. A little bit like taking a blank sheet of paper and starting to doodle…

Another picture strip of a Sculptris sketch. Not really happy about where I ended up (not enough sense of design here), but at least I got much faster at shaping things up and it served as a good reminder about facial structure. I might decide to take this up again later and move it in another (hopefully more interesting) direction…

Here’s a picture strip of “fishboy” showing the progression of the sculpt from a simple ball to a completed sketch (before taking it to Zbrush to finalize it).

Ok, I think I’m done with “Fishboy” (at least for now). It’s a bit hard to let it go, but it’s just a test sculpture anyway. I might go back to it later if I learn some nifty things than can be applied to make it better, but for now, signing off…

This is a work-in-progress of the texture surrounding fishboy’s facial area. Still learning Zbrush’s… ahem… “intricacies”…

Through trial and error, I’m starting to get a feel for it. I did several things wrong here, that I would call little “naivetes”, like not really planning the use of alpha maps, and testing directly on the model without thinking ahead. But hey, that’s called “gathering experience” I guess. Hopefully I’ll learn from the process. I already discovered some material effects that work really well for the iridescence and sheen on the wet fish-like skin. But damn, Zbrush is soooo idiosyncratic it hurts…