I had roughly blocked out a sculpt, the image to the right, from a ZSphere armature to get the proportions and overall shapes for the character I was working on in place. I came to the point were I started to feel that the geometry was getting in the way in some areas. In other words some areas had too little geometry while others too much.

At this stage I usually take a few minutes, before adding details and polish, to make a quick retopo to even out the geometry and get back better control in the sparse areas without having to bump the subdivision another level (Oh, how I long for ZBrush 4 R2, where you supposedly won’t have to consider this anymore, looks like they have added Sculptris technology).

I find ZBrush’ retopology tools quite intuitive and quick to work with and I have never shared the view that they should be cumbersome. I have a workflow where I paint the new topology I want on the mesh and then just lay out the new topology on top of that. Which have worked out fine for me in the past. Today I ran into something weird though.

I’ve tried to illustrate what happens in the image below. First we have the sculpture where I have painted a few lines to help me lay down the new topology. Then we have the sculpture with the new topology on top of it, and then just a shot of the topology lines without the sculpture in the background. The second row of images is the result when creating a new adaptive skin from the topology. The holes are highlighted in red in the last two images.

Holes when creating an adaptive skin from the new topology. Click image to enlarge.

The only part of this character that displays this problem is the foot, the rest of the skin works fine as usual. After having tried to figure out what was going on I simply erased the entire new topology on the foot and created it again. But still no go, I got the same holes the second time as I got the first time. Now I was frustrated, I truly hate it when I have to spend time fighting the software. Here is a turntable video to easier see the holes in question.

As I mentioned earlier, I’m one of those who actually don’t think that ZBrush own topology tools are that bad. I usually get the work done quite fast with them. But this time I’ve to declare myself defeated.

I guess ZBrush has a problem with all the ins and outs with the long, bony, claw like toes that somehow confuses the logic of how the skin is connected on this particular part. That’s my only guess of what’s going on, and I can kind of see where the engine could see two possible choices of where to cap the polygons. It looks like polygons have been created in some cases, but between the wrong edges. The thing is that I have created topology for similar parts in the past and it have worked fine. That was in ZBrush 3.x though, and the topology tools changed in ZBrush 4, so perhaps something changed along the way that causes trouble in this case. It could also be user error, but after having spent too much time with this I am starting to doubt that.

Anyway, I made a quick and easy workaround. I used GoZ to send the skin to modo, fixed the holes, and sent it back. And voila, everything works. I still get obsessed trying to understand why and how this occurs, as then it’s easier to avoid/work around in the future, without having to bounce to modo.

If anyone have any clue or knows more of how and when these holes appear I’d love to get enlightened. I kept searching ZBrushCentral for answers but no luck there either. I found the question, I found other workarounds, but no explanations.

Perhaps I should consider getting Topogun for my topology needs? I see people raving about it all the time. I’m not that keen to add new applications to my pipeline unless absolutely necessary or unless it adds a tremendous boost to my workflow. Topogun might fit into the latter alternative, speeding up my work. And it seems to be straightforward enough to get up and running without a long learning curve.

All images are screengrabs of the ZBrush canvas with some post processing done in Photoshop.

A slighly more detailed version (click to enlarge)

Unprocessed screengrabs from ZBrush (click to enlarge)

I sculpted this guy from a bunch of ZSpheres without a determined destination. I didn’t use any references this time but let the character design come to me as I went along. That’s one thing I really love about ZBrush, the freedom to just let the juices flow. I GoZ:ed into modo a few times for geometry additions, new SubTool basemeshes and clean ups.

Cheers!

Alright. 24 hours of sculpting done. Time to move on. But hey, it did yield some interesting results. But before getting our hands dirty doing some analyzing, here is a chart of all sculpts done.

I entered this experiment with a few basic rules, the most notable ones were that I had to stop after 60 minutes and that I couldn’t use any references. The 60 minute time limit was simply so I wouldn’t find any excuses not to doodle. I can always spare 60 minutes instead of watching some crappy show on the telly or similar time wasters. And the no references part was simply to force myself to train my inner eye.

I must say that this is the best 24 hours I’ve spent in a long time. The learning experience have been fantastic! I actually find it quite amazing how much difference 24 hours of practice can make.

Taking a look at the screenshot below, one of the first sculptures and the last sculpture from this experiment. Quite a difference how far I can take a sculpt in 60 minutes now compared to when I started this journey.

One of the first and the last sixty minute doodle

Perhaps not as interesting for the casual viewer, but I love to nerd-down in my endeavors. When I analyze my time-lapses and how my techniques have progressed from the first videos to the last ones I am thrilled to see all the evolution. Especially in my anatomy understanding.

The fact that I worked without looking at any references is probably a major reason that have forced myself to better understand anatomy and proportions. I’m kind of seeing everything much clearer now and I don’t need to be winging it anymore like I used to do, but are now much more in control of where I want to go.

I also learned something interesting which I hadn’t realized before. When working with a time limit I quickly saw a pattern that when I went towards a female look I came nowhere near as far into the process as when I went with a male look until the time was up. I had never reflected on this before that I need much more time to get a female to begin to look properly than I need for a male. I actually got so interested in this phenomenon that I did some research on the subject a few days ago, and it turned out that this is very common. It’s the same in drawing. You can either draw male or female likeness faster than the other. This is definitely something I need to work on to even out.

I actually wouldn’t mind keep going with these 60 minute doodles, as I felt that I made huge progress for every new head up til, and including, the very end. There is still many, many more advancements for me to conquer on these subjects.

But I was getting tired of the time limit though, and also spending time building the base when I was not allowed to use base meshes. I actually prefer to start with a base mesh from my 3D package, but for this particular exercise I wanted to make everything from scratch, so I didn’t get any help with the proportions.

As this experiment has really helped me to step up my game to the next level, I’m eager to come up with a new concept to continue evolving my techniques in a fun and productive way. I’ll see what I can think of next.

To end this post, a link to the Vimeo channel containing all time-lapse videos
“I Am Johan’s Sculpted Doodles” at Vimeo

And the final “I am Johan’s Sculpted Doodles” video

I can highly recommend doing projects like this if you’re looking to improve your skills.
Over and out!
Cheers!

It’s not at all intended to be related to my ongoing doodle project, instead I had some fun just sketching around for a while without any goals, restrictions or boundaries and see what I got out of it.

Well, a little bit more flooding it is then. And also to not risk falling back into a long period of radio silence.

Session number 13 done! This was another hour of doodling where I had pure fun and did not really want it to end when the alarm went off. Maybe it’s time to end or revise the rules I created for myself for this project to cater for the sessions where I really get into the flow?

I still see quite some progress of my techniques and speed with every new session, so I guess it’ll do me good to keep doing these “one hours” for a few more times.

Over and out!

My doodling rules are:
60 minutes // from scratch // no references // no shirts // no shoes

“I Am Johan’s Sculpted Doodles” at Vimeo

No, I am not going to flood my own journal with these doodles.

But I had some real fun with this one, I even broke my own rule and gave it a few more minutes than I’m allowed to. I could have continued for quite some more time as I had “the flow”, but that would’ve undermined my experiment.

When I’m done with this project, maybe I should browse the different sculpts that came to life and see if I want to take one or some of them further. Time will tell.

My doodling rules are:
60 minutes // from scratch // no references // no shirts // no shoes

“I Am Johan’s Sculpted Doodles” at Vimeo

… in 60 minutes.

The 8th session of my summer experiment.
I realized I had been sculpting primarily human heads so far during these sessions. Nothing wrong with that per se as I can use every opportunity I can get to train my inner eye to quickly find the correct human proportions.

My intention with these sessions is also to step out of my comfort zones and try out new things. So I’ll try to have that reflection kept somewhere in the back of my head from now on that variation is good.

Variation is good. Variation is good. Variation is good…..

My doodling rules are:
60 minutes // from scratch // no references // no shirts // no shoes

“I Am Johan’s Sculpted Doodles” at Vimeo

The fourth session of my summer experiment.

My doodling rules are:
60 minutes // from scratch // no references // no shirts // no shoes

I’ll post a session to my Journal from this experiment now and then, if you’re interested to see every session coming up, feel free to check out my Vimeo channel. Also check out the channel for more information and what my goals are with these sessions.

“I Am Johan’s Sculpted Doodles” at Vimeo

Check out my “I Am Johan’s Sculpted Doodles” channel at Vimeo

This daily sculpt is kind of a warm up session, but I also hope to gain some positive side effects as I progress during these sessions.

• Keep my skills fresh.
• Explore new techniques.
• Optimize my workflows.
• Improvise ideas.
• Improve my speed.
• Have some fun.

My rules for this experiment:

• 60 minutes time constraint. When my timer rings, I end the session.
• Start completely from scratch with a blank canvas and work from there.
• No references. The session should be improvised to see where the doodle takes me.
• No shirts, no shoes.

I’ll keep adding videos to the above Vimeo channel for some time, and evaluate my timelapses to see where I can improve my techniques. If interested, feel free to follow the videos as I keep posting them.

See you at Vimeo

I’ve spent a few hours playing around with the new polish, trim and planar brushes for hard surface sculpting. I can’t help continue falling deeper and deeper in love with this application, the new brushes are really awesome.

I haven’t posted here in a long time – work, work, work. But here is a few quick doodles I created earlier today while having fun with the new ZBrush version until I get some more time to write something more interesting.

Hard Surface Gun Sculpted in ZBrush.

ZSketch and then the retopologized poly mesh.

Just some odd spaceship form sculpted in ZBrush.

The ZSketch and then using Clay Tubes to fill in some shapes.

Kind of a robot entity with 70's platform like shoes.

The recently introduced ZSketch which let’s you doodle freely in 3D space together with the new hard surface brushes is definitely another step forward for ZBrush. It’s pretty cool to be able to go from nothing to have some concepts sculpted out in less than an hour.

Oh well, over and out. Til next time…