Painting Skin Video Demo

[Scott Spencer]

Hello Everyone,

Feels like I havent posted in ages so I decided to put this up here. I recorded this in my Z3 class at Gnomon using my old Stingerhead model as a demo. I got a lot of questions about how I hand paint some skins so hopefully this will give you some idea. If there is a good response I will try and do a more detailed capture.

I had to rehost the video at veoh cause my site was getting some high bandwidth. You can view it here now : )

http://www.veoh.com/videos/v851708WcEQPerQ

If you already downloaded the video feel free to rehost or distribute it : )

To help clarify the stages this image shows the underpainting, motteling (noodling) layers, and then mists of flesh color to the final.

stingerheadPaintProgressions copy.jpg

[j lizzle]

Thank you! That is a wonderful technique. I think I'll take a stab at it.

[rasmusW]

hey scott!

thanks for taking the time to do this.
-looking forward to see this video, when i get home. looking good.

-r

[Scott Spencer]

Thanks guys!

A quick breakdown of the process is as follows

polypaint fill a base color on the model
using a dot alpha set to spray stroke with the color modifier set to 0 spray reds blues and yellows on the whole head

I isolate these based on color temapture zones on the face.

warm: cheeks, ears, nose, chest, sometimes neck

gold/yellow: forehead, areas where the skin is thinner and bone is close to the surface, bridge of nose, clavicles, temporal ridge, chin

cool: beard line , lower jaw, temples, recesses

once these overstated colors are blocked in I cover the entire head with a fine layer of little white squiggle lines
once thats done I switch to a skin shader then with a standard brush set to a VERY low opacity ( 3 or 4) I mist a version of the base color over the whole head. This pushes all those colors back into the skin.

I think switch back to the spray brush and add in reds, blues, yellows, and cool grays where needed.

IN the end I use cavity masking to paint into the detail a light warm brown.

Hope that helps a bit. I really will do another one with teh whole menu system visible next time. I was talking while I did this one so I didnt think to record thw whole screen.

S

[vlad74]

Thanks Scot. Great video.

[Jester]

Very nice. I wish, if layers would work with polypainting...

[splatfx]

Nice job, Scott! Nice use of your primaries to create a base underflesh tone. I really like all the depth in the skin coloration that came about by your technique. It's too often that people don't understand all the colors that are actually in skin tones and it is obvious that you have gained a great grasp on that. Good work!
Bill

[alexleia]

wow!! thanks Scott!!

amazing!!

Alex Oliver

[Wildsketch]

I've really enjoyed your skin work and I had been hoping you would do a tutorial.

[Jason Belec]

Scott, you're so cool! Transferring airbrush techniques to 3D model painting and having fun at the same time! ;)

[JesseGraffam]

Thanks Scott. I'm currently about to texture an Alien so this will work out perfect.

[Lucky_1]

Many thanks Scott...

Cheers
Lucky_1

[WailingMonkey]

very nice!...always great to see various techniques (and much appreciated).

thanks! :)


WailingMonkey

[SNARK]

Scott,

Wonderful video. How would you create an SSS (Sub-Surface Scattering) effect such that the ears and nostril flares and horn edges would seem to possess qualities of translucence? Your interpretation of color zone theory is attractive and successful.

When you go into the tight close-ups of the eyes and face, what exactly are you doing?

One of the more interesting techniques is your masking of the horns around the 14 minute mark (anyway, it looks like masking, maybe you’re painting with dark grey). What are you doing?

Can you explain 'Cavity Masking' a little more?
Lastly, how accelerated was your recording session? How much ‘real time’ did the 17 minute video represent?

Thanks!

~S.~

[Plakkie]

I'd love to see this video! Can someone please host it on something else then Veoh? Pleeeease!!! :tu:

[Scott Spencer]

Thanks Snark,

When I zoom in I am adding little noodles of white or beige as well as spraying a warm or cool gray to alter the temapture of the area.

As for the SSS effect I do switch to the skin shader near the start of the video and I paint on that. The painting technique does help to support the feeling of translucent skin. It isnt going to create the same kind of backlight effect you get in a proper SSS render or a sillicone head. To get that you need to do a mental ray render. One cool thing about a color map like this is that it works really nicely in a SSS render in mental ray.

As for cavity masking what it does it masks out the recessed of the figure. Go to tool:masking:mask by cavity to see what I mean. I painted on there with a cream color with the low areas cavity masked,

Th video is sped up by about 50% I took a little under an hour I guess, maybe an hour to paint this guy.

Im glad you guys liek the video - I wish I could host it on my own site but the bandwidth got hammered. Maybe you can download it from veoh? There is a download button.

S

[Scott Spencer]

Oh BTW Plakkie your topology threads kick butt! : )
S

[Doqpelgänger]

Great video Scott. Interesting technique... Seems that you work backwards from the end to begining. Painting subtly some kind of "layers"... very inspiring.
Thanks for share it.

(sorry for my english, hope makes sense)

[Plakkie]

Thanks Scott! The Topology Lab is really a joined effort, amazing how big it has grown. But: I grudgingly signed up with Veoh (don't like that) and did what they asked. But I stíll can't download the vid. :mad: Can anyone please host it in another version??

[SNARK]

Thanks for the response, Scott.

When you say 'switch to the skin shader' what do you mean?

~S.~

[Thomas Mahler]

Who was the ass that voted with 1 star here?

Honestly, Scott, great work and thanks for sharing. I've rarely seen people showing their painting workflows, cause most of the time it means jumbling around between different packages like Photoshop, BodyPaint, etc. In Z3, I work quite in the same way as you do.

Great work. And to the idiot who voted with 1 star: You should be kicked off the board.

[marcus_civis]

Great method Scott, thanks for sharing. :tu:

[Mistwalker]

So Good Painting Method

[Jester]

As I suggested several times on boards, it would be nice if an extreme vote (***** or *) should have to be commented why.

[JamesCG]

Scott,

Wonderfull work. I've just done my first paint job in Zbrush using your method and I'm having alot of fun and getting good results. However here is a question for you..

Using SysPalette button/function I set several colors that I would like to paint with, using the custom color set. However, when I close zbrush and later reload my tool/model I find that the custom colors I chose are gone. I tried saving my document but that also did not save the custom colors. Any idea how to keep these custom colors besides writing them all down by hand for each project?

~ JamesCG

*edit* Nevermind, I found the Zplugin called ZSwatch, does what I was looking for! Cheers!

[WailingMonkey]

Plakkie,

Tried 3 different free hosting spaces...4th was a charm:

http://www.4filehosting.com/file/48089/Paint-skin-zip.html
(it's the .mov file zipped up)

hope it works for ya. :)


WailingMonkey

[Plakkie]

WailingMonkey: thank you! But I don't see a download button anywhere in that link. Only more ads for other programs I don't want. Help!

[WailingMonkey]

look for the blue 'submit' button. above it is some numbers to validate.
type 'em in, and hit 'submit'.
this should take you to a new page that has a countdown in yellow
(middle of page in tiny text).
once it's counted down, you'll get a blue
"Download file from USA Mirror" link and you can save to harddrive. :)

(all of this the price for free bandwidth, i reckon);)

cheers.


WailingMonkey

[Plakkie]

Aah! I see it now. They are making life difficult... Well, I'm downloading at 20kb/sec... But I can wait. Thanks so much for your time WailingMonkey! :tu:

[Moochie]

Most cool video .. always instructive to see a master at work. Thank you!

[Scott Spencer]

Thanks for the kind words everyone! I am glad you like the video!

S

[Scott Spencer]

Oh and thank you to those who are rehosting the video. I appreciate the help : )

S

[inverse catheter]

yeah. great vid. thanks scott

[J.Jagdishwar]

Thanks a lot Scott. Great video

[Scott Spencer]

Thanks everyone, Im glad you like the vid.

miztli: I haven't updated my website in far too long but I just corrected the broken links so if you want to check it out now it should work. Thanks for your interest!

S

[Scott Spencer]

Thanks man!
Yeah we did some work on the Pumpkinhead sequel modeling and such. The poster is a placeholder until I can get an image off the DVD to put up or when I get around to rendering the model with displacements.

Pumpkinhead was my favorite monster as a kid!

S

[Maxmate]

This video is so great! Thanks! I tried that method to human skin and it worked like a dream. Awesome way to make the skin tone vary.

Some questions:

1. What kind of brush did you use to paint those little white lines?

2. What skin shader was that?

[Scott Spencer]

Glad it worked out for you.

The brush I use is standasrd with freehand strok and a very small radial alpha.

The shader is Skin shader 2 with the opacity turned down under materials:modifiers

: )

S

[DDS]

damn man u rock. I'll try this soon. Thanks for sharing!

[tez]

Thanks scott, these kinda videos keep me buzzed up and inspired to do better.

High end results as always.:D

[emihich]

It is master work, no doubt.

It is a shame that We can't export the actual material but only the textures

in ZBrush3 .We may use Skin subsurface scattering combined with the textures
in another package renderers , However frankly is not the same and is not worth
the new material improvements in ZBrush 3 .
So this is a suggestion for next Wish list.:cry: :idea:

[Scott Spencer]

Thanks for the kind words! : )
Yeah, I have often wished for a material that mimiced fast sss in maya but I suppose the solution is setting up your fast SSS to mimic the ZBrush skin shader. I paint for mental ray renders this way and it reads nicely with some shader tweaks - more presets from Maya or plug and play would be ideal though : /

Also dont forget you can export these shaders in renders to photoshop and composite them together... same for after effects in theory : ) Th leading image on the video is entirely zbrush renders composited in PS.

S

[emihich]

Yes, both the creative model and painting are great in my opinion. Thank you for the tip about Photoshop.
Didn't know about that,Can you export the shader material to PS ? how do you do that ?
with a Zbrush2 or even 3 plugin?
if someone clarify that for me I'd apreciatte.
:ex:

[Rastaman]

Scott, very good, thanks for sharing. :tu:
5 Stars deluxe from me.

You bring me back to my traditional painting, especially airbrush-techniques.
I have done my 'real' paintings in this kind of technique for many years.
Since I have focused in the last time more and more into CG-Art and modeling techniques, exploring the amazing features of ZBrush and fighting with the incredible difficulties of several render engines, these 'good old things' that made the most fun of all came totally out of my sight.:cry:

Thank you for re-inspiring me to go back to my roots and do some fundamental good painting again.:lol: :tu:

Here are 4 examples of my traditional artpainting using mostly the same layer-painted technique with a real airbrush:
(as they are scanned paper-photos of my paintings, the quality of the colors is a little poor)

Leopardfrosch_2a.jpg
Second spring_4.jpg
Butterfly_1.jpg
Carribean Girl_1.jpg

Again, thanks a lot for this great video-tutorial.:D

Ralf

**********************************
OT:
Btw, can anybody tell me why almost all companys are not able to sell render-engines that are so prepared that you can get good results easy ?
It seems they all have a lot of fun in de-aranging almost all settings in that way that your first renders look like the poorest trash you can imagine.:evil:
Of coarse only few or no information about how to correct this shi.... included.:td:
Arggghhhhh.....:evil:

[KrakenCMT]

Just now saw this. Great technique! Studying every second of this vid! Thanks for making it!

[Plakkie]

Stunning artwork Rasta! :tu:

[Scott Spencer]

Wow Rasta! Those are awesome paintings, I love the denture one and the submerged lizard : )

As for render engines I am wanting to try out VRay since from what I hear it has some nice presets and good out of the box results.

[rhinomax1]

...... I really will do another one with teh whole menu system visible next time. I was talking while I did this one so I didnt think to record thw whole screen.

S
thanks Scott ,i hope to see your video toturials early days.

[Intervain]

this is an awesome technique!! Thanks so much for sharing:tu:

[dhruvsm]

hey Scot, first 5* for this great effort, cause thats the maximum i'm allowed to give i guess....and thanx a ton for sharing this video...which is really amazing, interesting, and inspiring...!!! :tu:

worth waiting for the download to complete....!!! :D

though the video is pretty clear at describing showcasing all without any vo...but still, i would like to ask u a few queries thats going on in my mind...

1) u hav mentioned earlier that u r using a Skin shader 2 at the start of the painting, is it in the material palette or is that a custom made shader as i was looking to find it but couldn't get one within except for those matcap skin shadres.....i followed a help in poly painting tut from the pixologic z3 help site where it was suggested to use the matcap skin shader 05 to start off...but it gives a very monotonous pinkish hue all over the skin...here's (http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showpost.php?p=387879&postcount=6) what i got when i tried in one of my model...
...and how much opacity u r using initially as that color is looking great for painting on...!!

2) r u using the projection master while working on that back big horn?? is the deco brush stil accessible in z3.1..?? i guess, u were using it for those long smooth curve strokes on the horn or something like that...

3) and also...that cavity masking is a great option..is there anyway to control the intensity or the amount of the cavity masking ??

4) also, if i want to remove whatever i polypainted earlier and start a fresh new one...how to do that??...


...I switch to a skin shader then with a standard brush set to a VERY low opacity ( 3 or 4) I mist a version of the base color over the whole head. This pushes all those colors back into the skin...i think this is a very key part of the whole process as it was merging/pushing/blurring back the whole initial spray of colours blended into the skin amazingly...hmm...how u did that!!?? :D ...

it will be great if u can post some frames of major key areas of the video with some notes pasted of the kind of brush and alpha settings, colors u r using...

thnx again for the great video....:tu:

[Scott Spencer]

Hi dhruvsm (http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/member.php?u=55928) vbmenu_register("postmenu_390368", true); ,

Glad you liked the video. i will try and answer some of your questions here.

1. About 2/4 of the way into the video I switch to a skin shader. This is the Matcap Skin 2 (if I recall, any of them will work though). Just back off the intensity slider under modifiers to get a more natural look.

2. On the back horn I am using Projection master. It is still active and the deco brush still rocks for long sweeping streaks of color. PM is even better now as it works wit polypaint AND it allows masking!

3. If you use the cavity masking option uinder the brush controls you can control the intensity and amount. I dont use that option because it does not let me see the vidual feedback of the mask.

4. to remove piolypaint just select white as your active color, make sure your brush is set to RGB and go to Color>fill object.

I will try and post some screens when I can. honestly I will prolly just make another video with audio next time :P The brush settings change so much I am always adjusting size and coilor opacity. The best thing is to experiment and see what works for you :)

Thanks again for checking the vid out. I am glad you liked it.
S

[Mini_Vin]

Amazing work, thanks for sharing your video i have i question what shader did you use in zbrush and did you render in 3d max, maya thank a lot seea ya Alfredo

[piz]

Thanks a lot Master Scott Spencer for condivide your Experience....
Very useful Video!!!

:tu: :tu: :tu: :tu: :tu:

[jmesias]

Great work! Thanks for sharing your techniques with us! Looking forward to the next vid with voice, and artistic insight ;) , of course.

But I cant seem to find the Matcap Skin 2 in Zbrush 3. In Z3 we have to the bottom left, and continuing one row up and to the right: Matcap Skin 06, 05 and 04. Contiguous to that we have the Matcap Skeleton, Matcap Sculpy 2 and Matcap Sculpy. Is it new in 3.1 or are we talking about the Matcap Sculpy 2? :p Thanks a lot!!

[Scott Spencer]

MatCap skin 04 will work fine (or any of the skin shaders) just be sure to back off the opacity setting.
S

[jmesias]

Thanks! that solves the enigma. Again, thanks for sharing. Will you be creating any tutorials on sculpting and painting, for Gnomon, anytime soon? I noticed you have online classes on www.gnomononline.com, but those classes are way too far out of my budget. so a tutorial will fit my needs just right.

Cheers. Happy ZBrushing you ZAddicts.

[Scott Spencer]

Thanks I am glad you like it! I have Gnomononogy tutorials up on Zmapper and soe more posting soon on 16 bit displacement as well as 32bit displacement. I should also post some sculpting videos pretty soon but my time is a little tight at the moment with Gnomon ONline, My DVD, and a book I am working on : )

Love to stay busy. I need to be sponsored by Redbull!

S

[jmesias]

lol, it is true, just a fun fact hehehe. sounds great!! so much material and expertise you'll share. great!! We're looking forward to it and specially the sculpting tutorials :eek: hehehe Good luck with all those endeavors!

[jmesias]

Powerful technique Scott!! awesome. Was checking it out and this is what I came up with:

[/url][url="http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%2770942%27,%27stingPolyPaint.jpg %27,1,0%29"]stingPolyPaint.jpg (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%2770940%27,%27StingPolyPainted.j pg%27,1,0%29)

model from www.gnomonology.com (http://www.gnomonology.com), credits go to Scott Spencer, of course.

[womball]

Can you still download the video? I would love to keep this for reference.

[jmesias]

From Veoh or here:

http://highend3d.com/zbrush/tutorials/textures_painting/Painting-Skin-Video-Demo-325.html

cheers

[Scott Spencer]

Hey jmesias (http://209.132.96.165/zbc/member.php?u=60257) vbmenu_register("postmenu_399412", true); nice work!! I am glad the video was helpful.
Oh and thanks for getting the Stingerhead model from Gnomonology : )

Cheers!

S

[nightwoodwolf]

the painting skin video is awesome, great tutorial scott :tu:

[prince-des]

niiiiiiiiiiice

please i want download the video file please upload your tut :)

[Teyon]

The video is on Veoh.com. There have been several posts in the thread with the link. You may need to sign up for Veoh in order to download it but viewing the video does not require you to sign up, so go have a look. Signing up is free if you decide you want to download the video. It's more than worth the download to be honest, as I hadn't thought of applying airbrushing techniques in ZBrush until I saw this video. Roughly 3 months later and I still use the technique. So go for it!

(oh and thanks Scott)

[robinmitra1]

thanks for the tute..very nice technique..

[digiegg]

Thanks for this. Great tutorial. I'm about to try it out.
I had one question.
What if I was to do a Orc skin. It's green so will I still use the same colors to point out the warm, hard, soft, areas?
Like on his forhead, should it be a more saturated green than yellow?

Also when you're done spreading the red,blue,yellow, colors, what alpha are you using?
Was wondering if you can go into the "Misting" more. I'm a bit confused on that.

Great tutorial once again. Would love to see a voice part.
You could probably just record it just watching this film instead of record one all over again. =D

*Also, could you do a tutorial for the people who are trying to push this render out in mental ray using fast skin shader?Looks great in Zbrush but it won't look as good in Maya.

[Scott Spencer]

Hey man,


Im actually writing a full description for my book right now :) Please forgive the shameless plug : o
http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Clay-Character-Creation-ZBrush/dp/047024996X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1195084267&sr=8-1
A maya MR render will actually work quite well with these maps or maps painted in this fashion. The cover image of the book is a MR render with nothing but a color map. It didnt require a lot of supporting maps since the translucency was painted into the color map.

As for an orc skin. I would think of the overall color you want the final to look like. If it is a cool green then start the character with a warm green or a yellow base. The idea is to just break up the color regions and put down primaries and econdaries to make your colors. All those red passes I put down will become a neutralized purple with green. I reccomend experimenting with a lot of yellows and blues and tryuing never to put down the exact color you want, try and get that color from two other colors... iof that makes sense?
Im glad you enjoyed the video!

Oh yeah and misting just means I select a version of the original base color, turn down RGB intensity WAY low and spray it on with the spatter brush (Standard brush, Spray stroke with Colro set to 0, and Alpha 07.) It has the effect of unifying the work you have done so far by covering it in a very very transparent layer of the skin color.
It kinds pushes the little speckles back into the surface and makes them look a little more natural... I hope that helpe : )

S

[chandro uttam]

hi Scott, tutorial on texturing look great! but as a beginner im confuse how you did that:confused:
are you going to make a texturing tutorial at gnomonology more of a step by step?

[titopte]

hi, i´, quite new to zbrush, and learning the basics.
Have a question for scott or any other, as is quite simple.
all the process we see, is made with polypaint? when you mention misting a thin layer over the primary colors...are you talking about a layer similar to the ones in the tool palette?
sorry, but i am learning and that confuse me a little.
thanks in advance
t

[GulagOne]

Thanks scott this is a technique I was looking for. I always wondered how pros got the skin to look so real.

[rubent100]

Wow, this is really a great tutorial. One of the best by far, there isn't to many tuts out there that cover poly painting techniques. But i do have a question. What do you mean by setting the brush alpha to 0.7? Do you mean opacity? I cant seem to find Alpha anywere. Thanks for this tut!

[-mkraft-]

excellent vid! lots of useful insite.
howd u rig up the slash brush used on the large back horn?
seems like theres a lot of possabilities there.
cheers!

[sevlarievlis]

Hey man,
I'm gonna buy your book when it's available!!!! :D

[cresshead]

great video, regards the book your working on will that ship with a companion dvd or will there be a site with models/textures to follow along with?= for people who purchased the book?

steve g

[Scott Spencer]

Thanks Steve,

Im glad you like the video. The book comes with a compnion DVD with videos of most fo the tutorials in progress so you can see the whole approach.

Cheers!

Scott

[cresshead]

excellent...i'll pre order the book from amazon.com

also looking forward to some videos from you for modeling with z brush too over on gnomology.com

:tu:

steve g

[nanogiraldo]

Hi spencer...

first of all i wanna thank u for ur effort and dedication on helping others....

second... i was trying to watch the video tutorial u upload but there seems to be a problem with colombia (the country i live in). For some reason Colombia is blocked and i cant get the page open.... is there any other way to watch the tutorial?? i dont know, another web page or something?

[Scott Spencer]

Im pretty sure its hosted at a couple places earlier in the thread for download. If you can't find it private mesage me and I will upload it to my FTP again for download.
Also, there is another version of the video that is over an hour long and fully narrated. It comes as a freebie on the DVD with my book so if you got that check the DVD an you wont have to download anything :) .
Cheers,

Scott

[SNARK]

Book? What book? Please supply a link to this 'book'.

Thanks!

~S.~

[Scott Spencer]

hahaha see this thread : )

http://209.132.96.165/zbc/showthread.php?t=59929

[supriyo]

it's really gr8...............thanx to pixiologic for making such type of help . I learn lot's from zbrushcentral and i learn lot's frm video tutorials through veoh tv and you tube..................thanx for make a gr8 world

[Cadmium77]

You was faster WailingMonkey - but well.. ;) Here is another ready to download version (http://rapidshare.com/files/45003946/z3_skin_paint.rar.html). Packed with rar and codec is xvid [14.9MB to download and 19.8MB movie itself. Lets keep it small :cool: ].

For someone who didnt used rapidshare before - on the window that opens click FREE button, then copy code to the window and click download.
-----------------------------
Thanks for the movie - is EXCELLENT - really I would like to see version with tools. Great share!Thanks a lot for posting that download.

[sonder]

Great vid scott....it's interesting using yellows for the thinner skin aswell as red and blue for the base colours.....genius!
Keep'em coming!

Sonder!

[womball]

Hello Scott. Do you happen to have any full body models that are colored with this technique? I'm not sure how this works for the entire body. Also would the underpainting work well as a subdermal layer?

[Mrlours]

Hello Scott, just a word to say "thank you" for your book, from France.

Regards,

[Outcast0822]

In the video, the cursor is different from me, instead of red it is a white circle with no focus setting. Does it affect the stroke??

What is a "dot alpha set"? Does it mean 1-dot Alpha 01 or many-dots Alpha 07 ?

I decide to use Alpha 07 and set RGB to 25, but there's no way I can spray as "wet/blur' as you - it just sprays obvious dots like yours on the back. Reducing stroke size helps but it still has MANY dots on my model.

When using the same brush and set RGB to <9 in order to cover the base color on them. It takes forever to fill even a 1cm square ! I have to spend like 2~3 mins to see little changes on the surface - but only 1cm square. I don't even know should I increase RGB intensity.

I NEVER Texturing anything before, so obviously I am doing wrong somewhere…

[Scott Spencer]

Outcast0822

The white cursor sounds like your model isnt in edit more but rather it has been dropped to the canvas. The cursor is red when you are in edit mode on a ZTool and white when you are in canvas painting mode.

The dot alphas are alpha 07 - the cluster of little dots.

Make sure you adjust your RGB intensity settings and select the spray stroke. Turn color to 0 in the stroke menu

I hope that helps. My book has a chapter on this technique with more step by step instructions which may be helpful. Let me know if you have any other questions.

Cheers!
Scott

[Outcast0822]

My attempt to polypainting(youtube):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfzFWfc_lg8

After a few tries, I figure that reducing Placement Variation of the spray can dense the spray a little bit.

Is the mottling pass a must for blending color ?
What color should I use when I using mottling pass brush?

I haven't tried airbrush before(In fact I just know this technique after seeing your video).
When using base color on those colored area, I have to spray many times on a tiny spot for the obvious "blending" effect. Is that normal?
And those big dots on the top blend hardly...

[Scott Spencer]

Hi Outcast,

You really want to get the spray as spread out and random as possile in the early passes. You dont want to have the dots too clustered so try enlarging your draw size and reducing your RGB Intensity.

You definitely want to use the mottling pass. The best way to describe it is that the areas between the little white squiggles will retain more saturated color while the ones under the white lines will become less saturated. When you start painting on top of that it gives the skin a translucent quality. The mottling pass is a must to tie it all together (in my opinion at least).

Looking at your video it looks like you need to mix up your passes of color more. You have a lot of red and a few passes of blue and yellow isolated apart. The red is also quite patchy. Experiment with being more bold and filling out areas with large swatches of spattered color. Remember the mottling pass in conjunction with the light coat of the base color will help push everything back into the realm of believability.

Also when I watch your video it looks like you skip the mottlign pass. You really need to do this step for it to work. Think about it this way you are painting the skin from the inside out and those white squiggles represent the fibers and depth of the skin.

I hope that helps some. I hate to plug my book here but if you check out the chapter on skin painting I have this video as well as a step by step explanation of the process which may come in handy. I also reccomend looking up Jordu Schell's airbrush painting tutorial from movie FX magazine and any articles from makeup artist magazine on painting prosthetics.

Cheers!
Scott

PS if you still have problems dont hesitate to post again or email me at scott@scottspencer.com.

[Outcast0822]

The Mottling pass is GREAT. I attached a screen capture for the result.
After washing the surface,I find the spray on it is too transparent.
I tried several "Red Spray-->Wash" on the cheek area, it stills look too transparent. Maybe I just wash it too much?? I use RGB ~8 for wash and ~25 for spray. How can I spray more red on the cheek area?

[Scott Spencer]

You can always spray more of any color on the head... remember this technique can be repeated multiple times on the same character to build up the paint job.

If you neeed more red on the chin just spray more red in and then mottle again or you can even try mottling the chin with red lines. I often find I need to do the color spray / mottle pass a couple times in come areas depending on how intense the colors were at the outset. If some areas look too washed out use the spatter brush on those areas again :)

Scott

[drumbrusher]

Hi, thanks for the tutorial!
I don't understand one thing... mmm probably two.
I'm seeing that at minute 6 the colors on the model seem to be merged togheter... so what's happen? just changed the material?
is there a method where i can blur togheter all my color on a model?
THANKS A LOT!

[womball]

If the character is green, would the mottling pass be green veins?

Do you have any examples of a full body colored this way? I'm curious also on how you near surface veins.

[Scott Spencer]

Hi Womball,

Unfortunately I don't have any full body images I can show due to NDAs and such but the process is the same. When I work a full body I try and consider where and how the temperature will modulate on the body. I have seen painting manuals from the classical period that recommend a ruddy skin tone on caucasian characters around the torso that get lighter in the limbs. I have seen this rule reversed as well so work with what you like best. Personally I make hands warmer as well as the torso. This is all for a light skinned human of course the colors are the same for all skin tones just the balances between them are different. Painting skin is as vast a subject as sculpting and there are many approaches and techniques to explore. Be sure to look in places other than 3D instruction and you will come across several centuries of good information you can apply. Look at information on painting prosthetic makeups as well and airbrush magazines. I also highly recommend subscribing to amazing Figure Modeler magazine for the painting tutorials. Those apply directly to painting in ZBrush!


For an alien character with green skin I tend to use red and purple in the veins. This may not make physiological sense but I like the look. I also use a lot of yellow in a character with green skin often making my base color pass yellow and painting in blues over that with reds in teh vein area, when this mixes you get a purple cast for the veins.

For subsurface veins if I am painting them directly into the color I just use a low opacity on the brush and vary the intensity of the stroke That way stronger areas of the vein look closer to the surface of the skin than weaker ones giving it the impression of traveling shallower and deeper into the skin.

Look at the painting techniques of the artist Ron Muek he is a great example of painting hyperrealistic sillicone skins. He will paint from the back of the skin to give it translucency but by looking at the technique I believe you can take lessons to apply to CG painting.


In my new book guest artist Eric Keller writes a chapter on painting a body in a manner based on my methods here. He combines photo ref and mottling passes to great success. You may consider checking it out.

BOOK LINK (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470450266/ref=s9_simp_gw_s0_p14_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=1E5WA7JZG45YE2WGKKV4&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470938631&pf_rd_i=507846)

in the mean time I have a tutorial/personal project in progress that shows a full body character with paint I hope may be helpful when its done.

Cheers!
Scott

[womball]

Whoa your book is out already! I need to save some money for it. I used your first one a ton.

I will have to test this out. See what works.

[skdzines]

Hey Scott, this is a great technique, however I have a question.

I am using the skin 04 material with the opacity set to around 75%. I have painted the entire body on this material and have it looking pretty good. However, if I switch the material to a fast shader, the texture looks horrible. Is this normal or should it still pretty much look the same, maybe just slightly darker? The reason I ask is because you mentioned in this thread that the head you use for the cover of your book, only has the color map applied and no other maps, but you have a very similar result. So I guess another question is, what type of shader are you using for it in that image? Is it a blinn, lambert, miss_fast, etc..?

Thanks,
Scott

[Scott Spencer]

Hi Skdzines,

The shader I used on the cover is a Fast Skin shader in Mental Ray for Maya.
IF you switch to the fast shader in ZBrush the texture shouldn't look terrible, you can continue to paint on it under this fast shade adding "washes" of the base color. There is no reason why it cant look good under both shading models but I find the translucency inherent in the skin shaders combined with the painting technique creates a nice effect. You could even say the demo as you are seeing it is tailored to creating maps for sad4rs with some level of translucency built in.
You can also get the same effect in Maya by adjusting the multiplier on each map layer controlling the "depth" into the skin (I applied the same color map in a couple of the SSS map slots.)

Alternately if you are further painting in Photoshop you can add overlay layers to help reinforce the sense of translucence.
In any case if it looks too much like a technicolor splatter painting then you need to add more layers of mottling combined with "washes" of the base color built up at low opacities. Try selecting the base color in ZBrush, setting RGB Intensity to 5 and pressing fill object with RGB on a few times, you will see the colors start to recede into the skin.

I hope this helps : )

S

[skdzines]

Hey Scott,

Thanks for the quick response. I'll keep messing around with it and see if I can get it looking fairly the same with the different shaders. How far down do you set the opacity of the skin material? Maybe I don't have it down far enough so that when painting my base color over the reds, blues and yellows, it is getting muted and looks good on this shader because it already has a pink/beige hue to it. Then switching to the fast shader, it is loosing that hue.

Not sure if that makes sense or not.

Thanks again,
Scott

[kooziesonline]

Thank you! That is a wonderful technique. I think I'll take a stab at it.Thanks for spending time posting this. When is next one?

__________________
koozies online (http://www.kustomkooziesonline.com/wiki.aspx/Home)

[Cordycep]

Scott, it's thanks to you and Paul that I am beginning to understand how to achieve my goals with Zbrush!

[Scott Spencer]

Thank you Cordycep! It means a lot to hear that these tuts, books, etc help artists. Its the point of it all.

Thanks for taking the time I'm sure Paul appreciates it as well :)

Scott

[celebsfann]

I think they are really expressive and well done. I did notice that on a few of them they seem a little sparse on paint, however I dont know enough about painting techniques and stylistic choices in painting to say if thats bad or not. My favorite is "everything is true 75 of the time"

[TAnker737]

sorry wrong thread

[V-Rag]

Nice paint, I LOVED it!

As a new user of ZBrush, I would like to ask some questions:

How can I start painting the model?
How can I change the base color of the model?
What brush did you use to paint? (seems like a spray, I don't know D:)
What is this shader that you were talking about? Was the shader that ''erased'' the color?

Thanks and awesome model and painting!