A small update on the doodle I posted earlier today.

I wasn’t completely happy with the look I got from the default rendering settings in ZBrush, so I spent some time reading up on the different settings and how they worked. So I just wanted to post a new version of this doodle with some improved settings. I’ve turned on edge anti aliasing here to get rid of the jaggies, added some perspective, improved the shadow settings. And also just had some fun painting my sculpture for a few minutes to make it a bit more interesting. Enjoy this cutie! :)

Still listening to: Koop - Koop Islands

I’ve continued my explorations into the ZBrush universe and this is what popped out. I love the freedom to just mindlessly sculpt in this application. Hope you enjoy it.

I’ve been into improving my ZBrush skills for about a week now I can say this software is truly amazing and will for sure improve my existing workflow. It’s so nice not having to fight the software, and I’m feeling free in the application and have found myself thinking more like a traditional sculptor. Yes, I am really having fun! :)

While working on this piece I realized I have to think a little bit more about topology of the base mesh, before jumping into the the finer detail sculpting. This will be less of a problem when I get into importing my meshes I create in LightWave, as I am very careful with the topology modeling in LightWave. But this sculpt was, like my second doodle two days ago, made completely inside of ZBrush, with the base mesh built from ZSpheres. When working with the details around the eyelid area as well as the genitals I realized I didn’t have enough polygons driving the sculpt in the background to be able to work as precise as I needed to do there. I could divide the mesh another time, but then I would get a great deal of details added to areas where I didn’t need it. Waste of resources in other words.

Well, this was doodle number three, so I am still learning, and on my next ZB doodle I’ll not make this mistake again, and make sure I put denser details in the areas where I need it from the beginning. Here is some screenshots from the different stages. ZSpheres -> Adaptive skinning -> Sculpting in the details -> Render in a clay material.

Gonna read up a bit on working with topology inside ZBrush next, to have better control of my sculpts I create inside ZBrush, and see what I come up with next.

ZBrush sculpting music: Koop - Waltz for Koop

I’ve continued my exploration within ZBrush 3, and had a one hour doodling session today (I haven’t forgot about my other projects, updates will come shortly on those as well). But I am really falling in love with the intuitive way of working in ZBrush so I will continue investing time to really get confident with this package, so I can use it in many of my upcoming projects.

The ZBrush doodle I posted yesterday was my first attempt to create something in zbrush 3, and was done with blocking out the shape with a sphere brush, convert it to a polymesh and then pull, push and drag around the clay from there. It got quite messy and lot’s of stretched and overlapping polygons. It’s almost impossible to control the topology working in that way.

So today I improved my workflow in ZBrush and used zspheres instead and got into the habit of using them to create a much better base mesh to work from. Nice and controlled topology, much quicker to work with and which therefore also resulted in a much nicer result. From the zsphere created base mesh I made a few divisions to get the details I needed to sculpt out all the finer details.

And from starting with an empty canvas to the creature I ended up took about an hour. Amazing, this would have take so much longer to model and sculpt in a traditional 3D package. Can’t wait to continue getting deeper into zbrush and start exchanging data between LightWave 3D and ZBrush.

Todays doodling music: Calexico - Feast of Wire

As ZBrush 3 was recently released, I’ve finally started taking the time needed to fully learn this lovely piece of software. Lot’s of more things for me to explore in this package, but I am getting there. Here is a doodle I made this morning just after I woke up while drinking my morning coffee. This weekend have been dedicated to ZBrush.

This doodling took about 30 minutes from an empty canvas for me to sculpt. I made it entirely inside of ZBrush beginning with the sphere brush and working from there. Just having fun with the sculpting tools. I don’t know what it is really, I was just playing around. It does take some time getting used to this way of working, being used to dragging and pulling vertices for years, and now moving over to this form of almost clay sculpting.

But I love it, and I can’t wait to continue digging into ZBrush and making it a major part of my pipeline for my pieces.

Doodling Music: Slayradio

The development phase has been going on for years and what originally was supposed to be ZBrush 2.5 now finally hit the streets as a more significant upgrade, and got the 3.0 extension instead. Pixologic has worked hard on this update and it has been well worth the wait! Woohoo!

I just got my upgrade link about an hour ago, so I have just started to check it out, but my first impression is Wow! I’ve had a ZBrush license for quite some time, but I never got around to learn it fully, but now I’ll definitely invest the time needed to learn and utilize this package in my coming projects. This will marriage nicely with my Wacom and I really want this to be an essential part of my pipeline from now on. ZBrush doodlings will come in the doodle category shortly! For Sure!

You don’t get closer to working with real clay, in a digital environment, than this.
This sculpt and painting package is truly awesome!

• Pixologic website
• ZBrush 3 Info

ZBrush 3 first impression music: Belle & Sebastian - The Boy with the Arab Strap