Lee Greatorex Photo/3D blog

I've been doing some studying on Zbrushworkshops.com - One of the free lessons explains the many ways in which you can start your sculpt. I wanted something which was similar to clay sculpting so tried the Armature/wire maquette style which utilises Zspheres. Rather than getting the main form from the spheres you instead keep them at minimum width and treat them as a wire base for the basic curves/shapes (much like a wire armature in clay). I used a basic dynamic pose here to see how it worked within the program.

 From there you can then start adding spheres with dynamesh (and insert basic shapes) to block out the main form, as if you were sticking the clay on the wire. It allows you to sculpt in pose which I like personally (as I want to eventually work on maquettes/statues for personal work).


 A Couple of pros and cons for this technique:

Pros:

• You have the potential of getting extremely dynamic/organic sculpts from using this
• Traditional sculptors I see this as the most natural way to get in to digital sculpting
• The model will look more natural if sculpting in pose rather than doing that after, this technique forces you to not work symmetrical.

Cons:

• This technique is no good for game characters or animation, riggers would have a nightmare!
• As I worked out (as I didn't really follow it exact) you have to get your proportions correct with this then keep to them (once the zspheres are moved to correct lengths use ctrl while moving to ensure they don't stretch. This is important for all sculpting but you can quickly mess up as in pose.
• Can be harder to fix errors. Due to the non symmetrical nature of the sculpt mirror and welding will not work. 
• It can take longer than a regular static pose - working with no symmetry and likely using in dynamic poses, constantly checking shape can take longer. Also working out how anatomy moves at certain angles really takes a precedence!

Overall I'll definitely try this style again, perhaps with a nice simpler cartoon style character and build my way up, not quite there yet to utilise the strengths this technique can produce.



Oops need to work on legs sometime!

This week I've been setting some time aside to practice some Dynamic poses for full figures. I've always wanted to progress my sculpting to the level of working on a comic or pop art statue (maybe get it 3d Printed when I'm at a good enough level).

I'll probably be getting some real armature rigs set up for testing (as I'm dying to test real clay, so many great influences such as the Shiflett Brothers) in the meantime I took advantage of the Mannequin tools in Zbrush 4 and above (might even be in 3!)

These are very simple to move around and duplicate so good to give a basic idea of shape and form. It is great for prototyping shapes (particularly if you have a basic idea in mind). I also found that it provided a fun puzzle when using comic references to see where all the hidden limbs go while still feeling dynamic and fluid!



Below was a test from a comic panel from the Infinite Crisis, in which 3 Generations of flash try to take Superboy Prime in to the speedforce. Here is the panel I got the main reference from (also checked out general 100m sprint poses;

I have rarely had more fun testing out/ 'Hobbying' as my lecturer used to call it than when recently trying out digital sculpting in Zbrush. It has got me hooked and I intend to learn this along side my current modelling / lighting tasks. It may slow my initial learning down but it is great fun and is helping me get more of an interest in organic modelling.