Scared Silly Entry by Brian Rose

[sirquadalot]

Hey guys, I just wanted to say...WOW!!! There are so many awesome, great, and fantastic ideas that have been posted! I hope mine will scare you silly as well...:D

I'm thinking about the legend of Sleepy Hallow...and the headless horse man. Ichabod Crane was madly in love with Katrina Van Tassel, and from all accounts, he was let's say...less of a man when it came to courage.

My concept is what would happen if Ichabod got some guts?

Maybe Katrina and him would play a game of, "pickle in the middle" with the Horse Man's head. Expect a dirt road, spooky atmosphere, scary trees, and a fun couple playing catch with the ghost's pumkin head, while his body plays the role of the pickle. This could be kinda cool. Please let me know what you think!

[Harmonic]

Sounds funny, :lol: I didn’t know what Pickle in the Middle was :o so I goggled it, thought I post it incase anyone else doesn’t know.

Keep Away, also called Monkey in the Middle, Piggy in the Middle or Pickle in a Dish, is a children's game (http://www.zbrushcentral.com/wiki/Children%27s_game) played primarily in North America (http://www.zbrushcentral.com/wiki/North_America) and the United Kingdom (http://www.zbrushcentral.com/wiki/United_Kingdom). Two or more players must pass a ball to one another, while a player in the middle attempts to intercept it. The game could be considered a reverse form of dodgeball (http://www.zbrushcentral.com/wiki/Dodgeball), because instead of trying to hit people in the middle with the ball, players attempt to keep the ball away from them.

[XSI Apprentice]

Hey, sounds like a cool concept, i can visualise it pretty nicely :D, loved piggy/pickle in the middle, except when i was in the middle :( haha, anyways. Good Luck :)

[sirquadalot]

Harmonic, Thank's for posting the definition! I think that Ichabod and Katrina are going to be having ton's of fun at the expence of the poor Horseman.

XSI Apprentice, thank you! It's going to be pretty neat!

[sirquadalot]

Hey guys! I had a little time today to do some sketching. This is one of the quick sketches I did that illustrates more or less how the final composition will look. This is just hand drawn quickly in my sketch book using ink and some color pencils. I was more concerned about the layout and camera positions than the quality of my rendering, but please any 121 is most welcomed! :D

[XSI Apprentice]

Hey, thats similar to what i pictured, tho it was almost reflected horizontal haha, not a bad layout, i had pictured them to be a little more centred and left to right, rather then the perspective view you have, with some trees in forground, like looking through a gap in them, and trees behind, if i get time i will draw what i mean :), but its looking good :D

[XSI Apprentice]

Just had another idea, could be funny having his horse off on the side eating some grass or laughing at him for all the bad times he has had, add to to humor, just a thought :)

[Harmonic]

That sketch is funny :lol: I like it. I like XSI Apprentices idea about the horse laughing at him to.

[sirquadalot]

Thanks guys for the input! I definetly need to think more about the horse's relevence to the scene. My major problem with this composition is the figures in it. I was having a hard time composing a scene that demonstrates my environmental skills, well trying to portray character interaction. I more than likely will change the position of the characters in the final scene, but the sketch I posted was, the least obtrusive of them.:D We shall see though! As far as foreground imagery, my sketch did not do it justice...plan on lots of heavy fog, tall grass, and if it works, a tree or two. ;) Thanks again!

BTW, it takes me a long time to do a decent portrait. So I almost always have to laugh when I portray a person in a quick sketch. It reminds me of when I was 8. :D Thanks again -Brian

[sirquadalot]

Wow after all these years, I finally hit 1,000 posts... ! One post ago...yeah!

[XSI Apprentice]

Hey Brian, Just had an idea for char/enviro interaction, you could put one of the kids hanging or sitting on a tree branch holding the head with headless below trying to jump up, then the other kid getting ready to catch the head a bit of a distance off, just an idea. i love the fog and long grass idea, dont think the fog should be too heavy, maybe so you cant see their feet clearly then rising to maybe the waist.

My quick protraits seem to turn out worse then an 8 year old :P haha, more like a 3 or 4 :(

[XSI Apprentice]

Hey, i was drawing an idea that was given to me thought i would do yours at the same time. its pretty rough, not really any details, but just an idea i had in mind, dont laugh too much :P, but the horse is in the bg, theres a cobblestone path, some low lieing fog that goes off in distance, and well the rest...well...yeh

[sirquadalot]

Thanks Michael for the sketch! As you know I was having a hard time placing the characters in the scene, and you accomplished this rather well. The pumpkin in the tree gave me a funny idea. Have the horse man's head as a pinyatta (I'm sure I misspelled this...but you know the paper mache object with the candy inside). Maybe have Ichabod swinging at it with a stick, and the horseman's body running to stop him? We shall see, I have to start Zsphereing some scary trees!

[sirquadalot]

I just wanted to clarify, I'm planning on using a pumkin as the Horse man's head.

[XSI Apprentice]

Ahh cool, you made me think for a sec about the pumpkin, glad you clarified it :), sounds like a a good idea there :), i think some ZBed trees would look mighty sweet, some of those old hollows etc like the ones out of Sleep Hollow movie, i loved the dark eerie style it was done in too, good luck :) Mick

[sirquadalot]

Thank you! I must get to work!:D

[sirquadalot]

scared_silly_modelwip_template_01.jpg
Hello everyone! I just wanted to post this little update showcasing one of the scary trees I'm working on. The base mesh for this model was created from Zspheres and then converted to a polymesh3D. I then added some edge loops in zbrush, and did a small amount of tweaking to the vertices. Hopefully I will have the finished sculpt and coloring done in a day or two. We shall see!

[Slosh]

Yea! I was hoping to see some sculpting soon for this entry. I love the idea, seriously. Monkey in the middle (as we call it here) with the horseman's head! How funny.

[sadicus]

The first sketch looks interesting, nice winding path.

[sirquadalot]

Hey guys, Thanks for posting! Slosh it's great to see your in the contest! Sadicus thank you and I hope it looks better than this W.I.P image update of one of my trees! :D
scared_silly_modelwip_template_02.jpg

[sirquadalot]

This is a ZBrush render, and the text/jpeg compression was done in Paintshop Pro.

[Blaine91555]

Cool tree. I realy like your concept, it will be fun to watch it evolve.

[XSI Apprentice]

Oooooh, awesome looking tree Brian, love the face thrown on too, good touch, its sweet seeing the modelling stages take place, cant wait for more :)

[sirquadalot]

Blaine91555, and XSI Apprentice thankyou for the kind words! I'm going to hold off for now doing any poly painting of this tree, because I still need to figure out my color pallet. I am planning on trying to do this all in ZBrush though.;)

[sirquadalot]

Hello! I just wanted to show a small test I'm working on for the ground cover of my illustration. I created a single leaf for this example. I changed the colors and used the draw rectangle and rotate dot strokes for this. The green plane in the middle was part of a shadow test for an idea I have.;) The far upper left shows the sculpted leaf, and just to the right is it's Zsphere. This was also an exercise for me to see how well the 2.5D brushes are working in ZB3.1...I need some practice to say the least! 121 most welcome!leaf_test_01.jpg

[dustbin1_uk]

Great techique for making leaves. Looking forward to seeing this one come together!

[sirquadalot]

I need to calibrate my monitors again...:evil: :mad: this image is much darker than on my work box. The BG should be set at Zbrush's default background gradient color of .66 not black as it's displayed here. If anyone would be so kind...please tell me if my background is closer to black...which I assume it is, than it closer to gray. I just had to install C&C 3 Tiberium wars on my work box...now did'nt I.

[XSI Apprentice]

On my end the bg looks around the 75-85% grey. i love the leaves you did, i still have no idea how you did it :S, even reading what you said, haha, im thinking some blueish/purple tones would be good with some hints of yellow and black. but thats me :) great work so far,

[sirquadalot]

Thanks Mark and Michael! Here is a quick tutorial on how I created this image: (Keep in mind you can use this same technique for any objectyou use in a scene.) **NOTE**- If you already have an object skip to step #4.

1. Create a Zsphere model of the leaf.
2. Convert it to a polymesh 3D and add the detail.
3. I did not use the polypaint feature on this model, but if you wanted, now would be the appropriate time.
4. The final step is to select the tool you just created and then click the ,"stroke" tab, and select your stroke type. This is where I need some practice, because the stroke options I remember don't seem to work the same as in ZB 2.0.
5. Start painting!

Here is a little bit more detail...:eek:

You will essentialy be painting the leaves onto the canvas. With your object selected, open the,"Picker" pallet, it will allow you to rotate the tool in order to properly align it in your scene...but there are even better options...

The stroke pallet tab allows you to select different ways Zbrush draws the object you have selected onto the canvas. I was using the Rotatedot, Dragdot, and drag rectangle. Please keep in mind though that even though my BG scene looks similar to the default start canvas, it does contain depth info...allowing the shadows to be cast by the leaves. I hope this helps some any questions just let me know!

[Marsyas]

Looking good! Those leaves look really nice.

[sirquadalot]

Thank you Marsyas! I'm just starting to start sculpting the ground for my scene. Hopefully I can have some work up soon!

[Intervain]

darn good use of z-spheres here! I like the leaves :tu:

[-WOODY-]

Your sketch and layout is good, but since we are roughly halfway through to the end of the competition, you might want to narrow your view down a bit.
You have a lot going on in your sketch which will probably take you a lot of time and work.

Just a suggestion, but if you would narrow and crop your image to show only the most important parts of your scene, it may help you in reducing the amount of assets you would have to create and position in your final render.

[XSI Apprentice]

Hey Brian, thanks for the tute, i will give it a whirl soon :), I agree with -WOODY- about half way thru comment, i had really better get to work too.

[sirquadalot]

Hey guys! Sorry for the late replies...been busy working!;)

Intervain: Thanks for the comment, I still have a few more to go!

WOODY: Thank you for the advice I will keep it mind if I start running out of time! I'm not super worried about time though because way before this contest was posted I had decided to take the week of Halloween off so I will have 7 days I can work 24 hrs if I need to.:D :o I more than likely will crop the image some, and move a change certain elements.

XSI Apprentice: No problemo! Your welcome! Best get to work!:tu:

Here is a small update on how my scene is progressing. I started with the plane 3D and converted it to a polymesh3D. I then positioned it in my scene using the Draw:Persp button: with focal length of 25. After getting the perspective I like, I then scaled the plane to the correct size I needed. I SubD the plane to a little over 4M polys (no HD geometry). I then simply painted a mask directly onto the plain for the walk path and used the Offset deformation to define the path.

Sculpting was straight forward using common alphas and brushes. I poly painted the terrain as well. Something that was really bothering me was how to create the grass...if I used geometry it tended to get washed out when I would show lower resolutions, so I decided to try using one of ZBrush's fiber shaders. Some tweaking and I found myself a nice solution to my worries. Now the image I am posting is strictly a straight ZBrush render without shadows. I know the grass looks pretty uniform and green, but It will really pop when I add in other detailing painted grasses plus the leaves and everything.

Well thank's again guys...I hope you like!:D
scared_silly_bglandscape_wip_01.jpg

Edit: Forgot to mention I changed the perspective a little because I'm planning on changing the BG...

[dustbin1_uk]

Wow! That grass makes all the difference! looks like this is going to be one project that's suddenly going to come together VERY fast!

[dustbin1_uk]

Sorry just to add to my last comment, did you do this all in ZBrush?

[sirquadalot]

Hey dustbin1_uk, thankyou! Yes it's all ZBrush.

[XSI Apprentice]

Wow, if thats your first time doing grass i reckon you got it pretty much down pat, cos it is looking mighty sweet :D, thats a pretty cool way to create a landscape, i never thought of trying or knowing in fact of how to do that. great going so far, and im sure that week off will help :D

[Marsyas]

Cool grass! Tried adding any fog to the scene?

[sirquadalot]

XSI Apprentice: Thank you, in my past landscapes I almost always painted the grass with the fiber brush. I'm finally happy I was able to figure out how to get the correct perspective with rendering Fibers in ZBrush!

Marsyas, thanks! I have not tried out the fog rendering yet via Zbrush's renderer, but if I'm not satisfied, I have a really cool 2.5D technique for painting fog in ZBrush...although I'm not sure if it works in Zb 3.1...I guess I could always load up an older version of Zbrush though!;)

[KOSOVA]

Yes I have to agree that grass looks great and done in Zbrush!...awesome

[sirquadalot]

KOSOVA: Thank You!

To the ZBC community... I have had a really horrible week. My Father had a minor stroke on monday, and I blew a brake line on my car while driving to work on thursday...Thankfully I was able to stop in time and no one was hurt.

My father is going through rehabilitation and should be home in about 2 weeks. Also, I just finished replacing my brake line...(the most difficult one of course) so I'm going to try and get back on track, and continue working on my entry. My apologies for my lack of contribution this week. :confused:

[Harmonic]

sirquadalot, sorry to hear about your troubles. Good luck to you :)

[XSI Apprentice]

Hey Brian, Sorry to hear about your dad, I hope he gets better. It is not a fun thing when your brakes fail, my main brake cyclinder karked it on me one day, thanksfully it was at night with little traffic, my brakes however did kick back in enough to get home and to the mechanic (phew). Look forward to your entries, and I am sure no one will have hard feelings about you not replying or posting etc, family comes first :D

[dustbin1_uk]

Sorry about your dad, I know how it feels, though I won't get into that now.

I know it's tough but don't let this pressure you anymore than you already are. Family comes first, in every way.

Hope it all works out man. :)

[sirquadalot]

Thanks for the encouraging words guys. I have some free time today so hopefully my entry will help keep my mind off things for a little while.

[sirquadalot]

Heys guys it's been some time since I had any updates. First off my Dad should be coming home soon, although he still needs some rehabilitation. I also finally made it to my vacation from work...now I just need to kick my work up a notch and get busy on my entry! Well here are some updates!

Image 1:

pumpkinhead_01.jpg
The Horse Man's head. I took the Sphere3D made it into a polymesh, subdivided to about 2.1 million polys and began sculpting. I also created a simple gray scale alpha that I then used to mask the pumpkin's face. Using the, "Size" deformation, I offset the surface to create the eye sockets and mouth. This model is polypainted, and I customized the Gorilla MatCap material. His eyes are painted using the HighlighterII Brush and the Intensity Brush after after I baked the layer.

Image 2:

scared_silly_bg_newpath_wip_02.jpg
I have updated my scene. I temporarily removed the scary tree so I could focus more on the grass and the path itself. As you can see, I changed the path just a little. I sculpted a sphere3D into a small pebble, and then used the spray stroke with decreasing pressure and brush size the create the perspective of the pebbles path. I also added a few larger rocks along the border of the path to see how the grass renders around objects place onto a surface with a different material. Just a side note, alot of detail is being lost by these small renders. (I halfed the original document, then AA halfed it). BTW rendered with shadows turned on.

Just some other things I'm up to... I also started modeling Ms. Katrina, the horse man's horse, and some other trees, but they are in the intial stages. I still have much to do!:D I hope you guys are doing well!

[XSI Apprentice]

Hey, glad to hear your dad is going alright :), progress is looking good to, love the pumpkin head :D

[nightwoodwolf]

the pumpkin has a silly funny expression ... i like it :tu:

[sirquadalot]

Michael, thank you he is home now, and is doing well, but still has outpatient therapy ahead.

nightwoodwolf, Thanks, Hopefully when the other characters come into play, it should seem pretty silly!

scared_silly_moon_bg_wip_01.jpg

Ok, well here is this mornings work. I currently have two layer in my scene. I filled the background layer using the gradient alpha, dark blue color, and the flat material. I then painted the fog using the bump brush on subtract, and varied the opacity, while using the spray stroke and several of the circular alphas Zb provides. I then added the moon which was a previous texture I had. I changed the hue and saturation with some of ZB's brushes(in a separate document..then cropped and filled with the MRGBZ and added it as a drag rectstroke). I also added in the glow using the highlighterII brush set to main and a and blue color selected.

The stars were done similar but I used the draddot stroke and over laped each star several times and with decreaseing sizes to add the glowing effects. The clouds were also created with the highlighterII brush described earlier. I then used the blur brush over the background. Keep in mind though that to be able to use my fog effect and the highlighterII brush in the manner I have, The entire layer must be filled with the flat material and baked. It essentially must have no depth info at all.

The foreground layer still contains the depth information. Once I finish placing my other props and characters in the scene, I will be able to have the fog spill over the grass and progress more fully into the scene. I also think I figured out my lighting solution as well. I'm still debating the placement of the trees though. Any questions feel free to ask!

[XSI Apprentice]

Dude, that bg is sweet as, i love it, that moon is sooo cool, fog is real nice too, it would look good i think if it was wafting this way over the hill, which i think you metnioned you are going to fade it in. cant wait, cant wait to see the characters and final pic :D

[Marsyas]

Really great pumpkin! Love the coloring and expression.

[dustbin1_uk]

Very nice scene! Like the mood of the moon! :D

[sirquadalot]

XSI Apprentice, Thanks man! I have to add more elements to the BG before I finish off the fog.;)

Marsyas, thank you! the majority of the color is created using the MatcapGorilla material which I slightly modified.

dustbin1_uk, thanks...it should start to get even more spooky!

Well here is my update... I have been trying to use ZB 3.1 for making my Zsphere models, but since I was running into some stability problems(wierd random scaling issues/crashes), I switched back to ZB 2.0. Here is the rough 2.0 Ziff imported into 3.1. This is a straight ziff with no sculpting yet. Once I get my Zsphere models roughed out into 2.0, I will bring them into the current version of Zbrush for sculpting and mesh extraction.
horse_wip_zsphere_01.jpg

[sirquadalot]

Hey guys just a little sculpting...I'm not sure yet if I'm going to paint in the mane or use geometry yet, but here is what I've been up to (besides playing C&C 3).
horse_wip_zsphere_02.jpg

[XSI Apprentice]

Sweet as, the horse is looking really good, i think a cool saddle would be good too, for the main i reckon a painted one could be good standing up, rather then flowing over his back/neck

[sirquadalot]

Thanks Michael, I never used subtools very much, but here is my first serious shot. Just a simple saddle and mask for the horse. I'll be starting his bridal/ stirrups next.;)
horse_wip_zsphere_03.jpg

[XSI Apprentice]

No probs, that was fast :D, looking good, i think tho a bit more thickness and volume is required around the saddle, mainly maybe the edges. looking cool :)

[sirquadalot]

Yeah... I noticed that also...I hope a simple deformation via inflate will do the trick so I don't have to do too much redo on the saddle.

[Marsyas]

I like the spiky headgear and his 'mean' expression. :tu:

[XSI Apprentice]

Yeh sweet as, you could always do a quick mask with soft edges and use the inflate brush or so, hope your other characters are going well :), good luck

[sirquadalot]

Hey guys I'm doing the big push and have made tons of progress. Should be done in time and be able to post some of the wip images!

[sirquadalot]

All I can say is holy cow! I'm finished! With over an hour to go...maybe I can post some wips. I did so much work today on this...I'll try to get them up before the deadline, but here is a AA1/2 of my final image. Detail is kinda washed out, but wait till you see the full version, much better.

2x_AAhalf_lowresfinal_01.jpg

[sirquadalot]

I think my eyes are going to fall out...I've been at this since 10:30 AM yesterday! But hey I'm on vacation, and this is part of what I do for fun!

Almost everything you see here in these next wip images, I did all today. Talk about procrastination! And Everything was done in Zbrush including final render (except text and jpeg compression).

The Horseman's body...I had alot of fun making him, he is a Zsphere model that I unified skinned, sculpted and created his armor with sub-tools(sorry for the short answeres, but this thread is going to close soon.)
horseman_body_01.jpg

Here are some other wips you may find fun, I'll put as thumbs.

katrina_01.jpg
tree_part1.jpg
tree_part2.jpg

Have a great one guys, and as always any questions you have, feel free to ask! Good luck to everyone!:D

[sirquadalot]

I some how messed up the thumbs, at least they did not blast the new image thumbs on the main page...?:eek: I guess that's what happens when you ZBrush for 15 hours in a day.