The goal
In my second year of university, we created digital sculptures using ZBrush. This was my first time sculpting digitally, and although it was difficult to adapt to the software, I loved the challenge.
We were asked to create 3 sculptures of anything we liked, and 1 specifically of a pre-existing character from a game, movie or comic.
What did I do?
Skull
I chose to model the skull because it was a good challenge when working with a model sheet for the first time.
I made it from two spheres – one for the upper half and one for the lower half. I used the dynamesh function to keep the geometry regular as I worked. Interestingly, the hardest part of this sculpt was the teeth. I ended up making them by creating two ‘gums’ shaped like the inside of the skull, then masking and extracting a subtool for each set of teeth – upper and lower. Then I defined the shape of the individual teeth.
This was an interesting sculpt to make. I think it’s not perfect – the jaw is a bit too wide, and the bones on the side are a bit wobbly. But it’s a good representation of a human skull and I’m pleased with it.
Hand
I know hands are one of the hardest parts of the human body to accurately create in any art form, so I decided to challenge myself to make one.
I started with a cube for the palm. I made each finger out of 3 cylinders with spheres for the knuckles. Then I merged each finger down into the palm and used the dynamesh function to merge the subtools smoothly. I added and removed large sections of ‘clay’ to start, building up the large forms of the palm and wrist. Then I added in large creases, then moved on to small creases and wrinkles. It took me a few tries to get each finger the right width and height, especially since I bent them rather than leaving them all straightened, for a more interesting final product.
Overall, I’m very pleased with this sculpt, and I’m glad it turned out like it did. I’m especially proud of the wrinkles, creases and webbed skin; I think it really feels like there is skin on the hand. However, I think the fingers are a little too thin, especially at the base, which means they look a little odd. I think I also emphasised the last knuckle on each finger too much.
Sword
I created a sword because I wanted to try using ZBrush for hard-surface sculpting. I know that in a normal workflow for making a hard-surface object, I would start in a modelling program like 3Ds Max and maybe not ever use ZBrush, but I wanted to see if I was able to create a hard-surface object entirely in ZBrush.
I started with a cube for the blade, then masked and split several cuts until it had the desired shape. I used dynamesh to close the holes and smooth the topology, and thinned the edges of the blade using a combination of the flatten brush and the pinch brush. I created the pommel and joint between the blade and handle in much the same way, adding sharp detail lines as well. Then I created a handle out of a cylinder with 3 extracted sections to add grip.
I think that although this is not the ideal program for sculpting hard-surface objects, I successfully gave the sword the appearance of sharpened metal and that it would make a good game asset.
Sindragosa
For my final piece character sculpt, I decided to make the character Sindragosa from World of Warcraft, because I love the design of her character.
I started by shaping a sphere into a rough human head, then importing a model sheet of the character and matching the facial features up to the sheet. This way I knew my facial features were all correct, even though they needed adjusting to the right places. Then I made the hair out of several spheres. The hair took a number of tries to get it to appear to ‘fall’ correctly and in a semi-realistic way. The facial feature that gave me the most trouble was the eyes. I found it hard to measure the corners, since the character has eyes that are pointed and angled, unlike those on a standard human. Then I made the helmet out of another sphere. I made only the left half first, then duplicated and mirrored it so I knew it was completely symmetrical.
This was my first full head sculpt, and I think all the pieces interact nicely and are proportioned correctly for my chosen character. I’m very pleased with how it turned out.
The result
I’m very glad I got the chance to learn how to sculpt digitally. While I prefer 3D modelling, I like the idea of being able to create and animate a character all the way through, from rigging bones to creating and deforming the mesh.
What did I learn?
I learned:
– How to use ZBrush software. It was a steep learning curve, but I feel confident creating and polypainting digital sculpts using ZBrush and other similar software.
– How to sculpt from model sheets.
– How to convincingly sculpt both hard-surface objects and organic objects.