Lee Greatorex Photo/3D blog

Think I saw Cesar Decal Jr utilise this in his introductions to Zbrush found on his youtube pages. I think it's great to study how traditional artists use digital software as they always seem to have some really innovative techniques which may be overlooked/ completely unused by digital veterans.

This technique will automatically export shots of your model from multiple views in to Photoshop. It has other handy uses such as getting to a certain angle quickly (if you have images for reference in the background).

So here's where to find it. Under Documents (in the top panel) go down to ZApplink Properties. From there you'll see the settings below. All you need to do is set the angle you want up in Zbrush then shift-click on the button you wish to use for that view.

By default when you select a front, right or top view it will automatically go and fill out the opposite for you.

Just a quick update on the lizardman concept I was working on. If you didn't see it here was the initial paintover.

I started adding the frills / horns and tested out some legs (the legs and arms I'm going to change but I wanted to test scale).


I started a rough colour paintover after completing the frills. I wanted to try blending some colours and used some Iguanas for reference (the head was based on iguanas, it's where I got most my lizard reference from)



I really wanted to add a lot more colour to my work as usually, especially with my inspirations alot of my sculpting work stays grey or very pale, almost pastel colours. I think colour is something we avoid a great deal in 3d work, games and film together. It's something which is challenging but I think I'm going to keep at it and make a few characters that really pop out.

Below are the paint test videos, these are polypainted on top by hand, mild detailing done with one of the default zbrush alphas and a few of my own (see below for some of my own rough alphas, taken from some of my photos)

Got interested recently in a FB group called Spitpaint. Similar to lunchcrunch it gives a rough topic to choose from then you have 30 minutes to create an image from scratch (no photos/phototextures allowed).

Thought I'd brave it, it is incredibly challenging, particularly as I don't put too much time in to painting. I think it's very important though as it helps immensely with colour blending and image composition. For saying my most knowledgeable area is photography I tend to find colour tone and composition my weakest area in painting/sculpting.

Here are my first few goes at it anyway;

Above: No particular theme for this one. I was just trying out new brushes in PS. Kind of imagined a rocky canyon/shipwreck. This one took about an hour after getting new brushes recommended by a friend (they are Peleng's brushes, made available on his blog).

Below: This was the first entry I put in to the spitpaint group. Taking about 27 minutes. The theme was 'tunnel entrance' although ended up making it more like the exit!






Above: just some very rough landscape thumbnails. 1hr in total for all 4 trying to work with brushes and composition
Right: very rough portrait, topic 'Apache' 25 mins. Very tricky to do portraits (for me anyway) in 30 minutes.



By doing this it also improves my sculpting workflow for concepting. Here is a quick sculpt knocked together and then a rough colour/texture test taking roughly 1 hr;


I'm making progress on my clothing modelling, slowly chipping away at the model side. I've also started re-learning some vfx, this time for use in realtime engines. The tutorials are from the great ImbueFX. Bill Kladis is an excellent teacher for UDK/Unreal engine particle effects and has worked on titles like Mortal Kombat and Injustice: Gods Among Us. I'll try and get some stills up in my next post as my current rig probably isn't great for capturing realtime effects!

Kicking in to overdrive and trying to sculpt as much as I can when I have free time. Here are a some of the sculpts done this month in my spare time;


I did this yesterday, trying to use a traditional method for creating a figure. Using a very simple armature created with zspheres then after posing using a standard sphere with dynamesh in order to sculpt over the top of the wire mesh. It was fine up until the point of adding the arms.

What I might do in future is append spheres separately for each ligament (and one for torso) then merge them after getting to a certain point as I was having some problems with the back/shoulder muscles. When it was all 1 mesh re-toplogising with dynamesh was causing that area to get even harder to fix.

I do like the posing and then sculpting asymmetrically. I think it adds a weight from the start which can be missing from the sculpture process, as well as possibly a more natural feel (not working in symmetry). I quickly concepted an orc/ogre from the base form I created which worked well.


Earlier in the month I was trying to work in different styles. After watching so many effects videos and prosthetics videos (the Stan Winston school vids on youtube are awesome!) I decided to go for a prosthetic/ mask style. Zbrush could be used to concept these ideas quickly before a mask/makeup was created. Below is an orc and goblin with this in mind.



Below: Removing symmetry from the mesh and testing some ideas for the old orc.


Moving on with trying different styles I tried going for a highly stylised look. One of the weaker areas I have in zbrush (and 2d drawing) like a lot of beginners is the work can end up being a little 'soft' so tried to incorporate hard edges to help emphasis the 'thug' character.


Below: I wanted to just see how it would look like if I turned him in to the punisher/frank castle. I prefer the armoured look from punisher max and the most recent movie (the dude's not bulletproof!). This was done using extract mesh and imm curves


The alien head below was heavily based on Jordu's creature/mas work. This was a bust/head project to see if I could work a model over a number of sessions. I completed it over 3 sessions, then recorded it over 4 videos. The link is below the image (probably better to load in youtube itself to see all 4 parts).

Still a few days left in the month to try and get some more work on. I'm going back to Casey Love's SWS digital to practical lesson and trying some 2d concepting to try and increase my skills in building character and story within a character.

This week I've done a bit of everything. Drawing in photoshop, sculpting in Zbrush and working in Super Sculpey polymer clay.


 Clay: I spent about 3-4 hours on this guy so far. It's my second go with super sculpey and it's great fun! For the eyes I used cheap pearl beads from a craft shop. I am still working on the shape the aluminium gives me underneath when I build the armature.

 Photoshop/2D: These were both done in photoshop.  I added a filter using snapseed on the ipad for the demon.


Above: 'High Demon' based on the sculpture by the Shiflett Brothers (minus the wings!)
Below: Still going through Casey Love's design and sculpting video on Stan Winston school. It's improving my concepting a lot and I'm enjoying just sketching in Photoshop now. 






Finally this wasn't done this week but I completely forgot to upload it on here. This is a torso based on Scott Eaton's anatomy course. It's a course I'm really interested in taking in the future so wanted to see if I could get to some level of anatomical understanding before.



The timelapse of it can be seen here;

I did these in the lead up week to Pacific Rim (after watching it I can't recommend it enough, go see it!). They were all done within about an hour and a half. I even tried some 2d monster sketches in photoshop (I haven't done 2d stuff for literally years!). It was great fun and will do a few more themes like this in future:

Tools used: Zbrush+Photoshop - Wacom Intous 3

Above: This was the first one. Like an evil dinosaur-tortoise head. I tried basing the first 3 kaiju on animals loosely.

Below: This one is kind of a rat-shark. I didn't really know where to go with this one but wanted something with huge teeth! The timelapse and turntable is also below



Above: A bird based one. Wanted to make a beak. This ended up looking like a smaller monster due to the humanoid proportions. The making of is below (minus the beak as they are separate subtools). The video shows more of a dinosaur looking base for the model (kind of looks cooler now I look at it without the beak)


Below: This was the last of the Zbrush sculpts. This was the only one done pretty much directly after watching the movie. I tried going for the smaller eyes closer together and the huge jaw. The parts aren't fully defined and I think the over the nose jaw gives it a bit more comic/cartoony look.


Below are 2 sketches done in photoshop, still under an hour. These were done while going through one of the Stan Winston school courses based on digital to practical design. Explaining very basic and simple techniques just to get some characters roughed out for sculpting in clay.

You can check the full course here. I can't recommend those courses enough



I hope these are enough to get others doing some monster drawing/sculpting, go watch Pacific Rim if you haven't already! Next post I'll review some of the books I got in a recent art book haul!

I've never used clay aside from that 1 foot done in air dry clay many years ago (the photo is on this blog somewhere). But I really wanted to give it a go. A sculptor friend came round with some air dry clay and I gave it a go!

The 2 above were with new/air dry clay. I made a rough armature from an upside down water bottle (hence it's narrowness) and used mostly loop tools and my hands to get a humanoid face going on. It was great fun and nice to see the techniques I've learned in 3d sculpting follow over to real clay.

As my interest is in figure/comic statues I also bought some super sculpey. I'm hugely inspired by loads of sculptors but some of my fave statue/kit sculptors are the Shiflett Brothers and they use super sculpey so thought I'd give it a go! I'm sure the clay is slightly better quality across the pond but I'm having some great fun with this stuff so far! Really fun to work in and use and it hasn't dried on me yet.

Below is about an hour in to using it. It's about 2ish inches in length.


This is after a couple more hours. I tried smoothing the forms a little although currently have no rubbing alcohol yet to really smooth it down. I'm getting there with it and plan on doing some more heads and other things over the next week or 2.




Overall I'm happy the skills transferred ok and I'm super addicted now! I have a tonne of fantasy art books on the way and I want to have a go at working on some busts or even an attempt at a full figure in clay eventually.

Finally here is a video of the head as it is so far;

Sorry for not updating. Been away and very busy at work. That hasn't stopped me sculpting though! Here are a few done over the past month or so;

Ok This is a bit of an image dump post but these are Zbrush sketches/crunches done in the past month. Some I carried on to paint and such but nothing ott. Most stuff done within 2 hours.


 First up was my version of Martian Manhunter from DC. This was done in about an hour, I just wanted to try out some comic bust ideas and how to work with curves to create new geometry for the collar.

Below: I was taking a lot of reference from some old native American photos from the late 1800/early 1900s and gave sculpting one a go. I took ages trying to work out how to do hair but it still didn't work well but I'm happy with the face. Took symmetry off very early for this one which I enjoy doing.



Above and below: This was a portrait attempt using Ray Stevenson (Rome/Punisher Warzone) for reference. I really wanted to do a Punisher bust so I think he has a great face for it (regardless of what people think of the films). Took symmetry off pretty early in this one as well (hence the image below's angle, I hadn't actually started on his right ear!)


Below: 45 min sculpt of some finned warrior style dude. The fins were actually using the IMM goblin set (They were originally goblin feet!)

 


 Below is probably one of my favourite ones. This was from a cylinder after checking some speedsculpts on youtube. About 45mins-1hr but happy with the result. I wanted to show the process off for this but it deleted my history when I split the eyes in to a new object using split groups (Will learn that for future reference!)


I'm currently trying to work on some ideas I can do quickly for characterised/animated style full characters, something similar to simple collectible vinyl toys just for a test (and to get me to try doing a full model!)