Action Hero-Shiveara the Ice Queen (Heroine)

[sirquadalot]

Artist Name: Brian Rose

Concept Sketch:

Shivera_draw_03.jpg

Background Story:

Katherine Frost was a molecular biologist working for a company called Genotech in one of their advanced and highly classified research divisions located in Antartica. While researching a new form of poly peptide extracted from a recently discovered organism, disaster struck. Explosions ripped through the facilities main complex destroying every building and nearly leveling her small lab.
Within seconds of the attack, a paramilitary group burst into her lab shooting everone in sight. Katie's hope for survival looked grim. Out of desperation Katie injected herself with compound X47A...an anti freezing serum her lab partner and now recently deceased husband created only the day before. Running for her life, Katie fled into the dark frozen night, swearing revenge on those responsible.

Powers and Abilities:

1. Invulnerable to cold and ice.
2. Freeze water and Objects by touch
3. Ice Sleep- Can put herself into a state of suspended animation by freezing herself in Ice. Duration is dependant upon temperature. When the Ice she is encased in melts, she awakens.
4. Ice Manipulation- Form objects(weapons, furniture, buildings) from ice.

[SolidSnakexxx]

Interesting and cool looking character. The head dress reminds me of Cleopatra or something. Look forward for more form you.

[sirquadalot]

Thank you Sir! I'll try and have some updates soon.

[sirquadalot]

Here is my Zsphere model.

zbc_ziff_before_topo_01.jpg

[Moni-Poroni]

Great start so far..
interesting zsphere model:)
Are you going to use the unified skin?
Best wishes

[Drakelot]

Cool concept on the Ice Queen :tu:

[ISK-86]

Looks really nice.... seems like we both have attraction to Ice-Based Hero/Villians :D

Impatient to see your progress

[gabo1991]

Do not use ZSpheres for the breast. It would be better to sculpt that in. You will get some unkind results when you go to make your adaptive skin.

Paul

[Trurl]

Interesting idea and a nice start on the zsphere modeling.

[sirquadalot]

Hey guys, It's been a heck of a week! Sorry for the late replies.

Moni-Poroni (http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/member.php?u=136490) -Thanks, actually, I'm directly topo-ing over the Zspheres.

Drakelot (http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/member.php?u=60129) - Thank you, I hope you will like my next update.

ISK-86 (http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/member.php?u=145087) - Thanks, I like your concept as well!

gabo1991 (http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/member.php?u=46557) - Thank you for the warning, but I'm skinning the Zspheres myself.

Trurl (http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/member.php?u=7298) -Thank you.:D

[maxinkuk]

Hey, great idea to retopo over the ZSpheres. Why not? That explains the very interesting ZSpheres structure. Have you done that before?
I look forward to see the next steps. Best of luck.

[sirquadalot]

Actually I have, and it works pretty good. The hardest thing is topo-ing the small parts (like fingers). I have found that you can only zoom so far into the ZSphere model, and this sometimes makes it difficult to place the points. Also some times it's hit or miss with the way the adaptive skin preview interprets my topo. The other cool thing about this technique (I'm still experimenting with this) is that when the topo is complete you can re-pose the Zsphere mesh and the topo will conform to that pose. I was also able to add detail/sculpting to the initial pose(in preview mode) and have that information translate with minimum distortion to the new pose.

Unfortunately, subtools (even though the Zsphere model can have them) will not translate when you re-pose the Zsphere model. I have found though that you can have subtools active while you are doing your initial topo...so that you can topo the Zsphere rig and when you get to the subtool, continue topo-ing over that. I know this is slightly abstract, and some visual input would help, but my monitor died on my work box, and since my Web computer is not networked to it, I'll have to wait a few days to get a monitor. I still have some experimenting to do, but I'm really having fun with this technique.:cool:

[maxinkuk]

Thanks for the explenation, I think I'll try it very soon.

[canndis]

cool technique , I will have to try it and see

[sirquadalot]

Unfortunately, due to the weather here (and my work schedule), I was not able to go out and buy myself a new monitor (HP w2408h) ;) until this past Saturday.

It's been almost a week since I've been able to work on this project, but I was able to create a quick topography on my ZSphere model. Doing topo work directly over a ZSphere model is troublesome at best. Needless to say, regardless of incremental saving, I still lost work. I pushed on though...So I needed to get moving on this piece, and since topography is not that important to this project, here we go! P.S. I'm still getting used to my new LCD monitor so please forgive me for any wacky colors.

Zbc_heroe_upd_02t.jpg

Just to clarify, I'm drawing topography directly on top of the Zsphere model.

[sirquadalot]

I have been using CRT monitors for a long time. Please be patient with me while I make my transition HDMI.

[Marsyas]

Never tried to retopo zspheres. Looks interesting. :tu: If you want to keep the shape of the zsphere model I imagine you could also try making a uniform mesh instead of an adaptive mesh, and then retopo that.

[Harmonic]

Cool technique! Looking really good so far, I might change the edge flow around the breasts a bit.

[sirquadalot]

I have had very little time this week to work on my entry.:( But here is a small update. I guess the sculpt is looking Ok :rolleyes:
Zbc_heroe_upd_03t.jpg

Marsyas, Thanks for the suggestion. I have not tried the uniform skinning in the current version of Zbrush yet (and I should), but in past versions of Zb, the smallest Zspheres were basically omitted from the uniform mesh creation (for example the geometry of the fingers and toes were badly broken and mis-shapen). I'll put this on my, "Can I do this yet in ZBrush list" ;) Thank's again:D

Harmonic, Yeah... I know the topo is pretty bad in some spots. Thank you though.;)

[SolidSnakexxx]

Very interesting method to skin the model from ZSphere. Will need to try it out one day. I look forward to see more.

[Moni-Poroni]

Intresting what you´ve done with the topology. I didn´t know that this is possible!
May I ask you if this is making any difference? :)
Best wishes

[sirquadalot]

Hey guys it's been awhile! The flue bug decided to visit me this week.:( But after a few days of rest I feel back to a 100%:D I have not been very motivated lately, but I made myself do some work on my entry today.

I roughed out her body suit and hair, and I also started sculpting her face. Hope you like!

Zbc_heroe_upd_04t.jpg

SolidSnakexxx, Thanks it's deffinately a different approach!

Moni-Poroni, Thankyou, the best part about working this way, is that you can build up the volume of the sculpt using Zspheres and not worry about how ZBrush will interpret them...;)

[JUPITER]

Really clean looking garment's,?I like what you have done so far!!
:D

[AVTPro]

Love the blue green skin color.

[SolidSnakexxx]

Interesting color for the skin tone as shown in the concept work. Look forward for more. :)

[Marsyas]

Cool colors--that magenta really shimmers. Glad you're feeling better. Keep up the good work! :tu:

[sirquadalot]

I'm just not having much luck this year. My primary monitor bought the farm, my little used (and not cheap) printer keeps eating everything I try to print, I caught the flue bug close to 2 weeks ago, and to top it off this past Sunday I slipped on a patch of Ice...busting the back of my head open. Hopefully later today my Doc will be able to remove the eight stiches I got at the ER.

As far as my entry goes, I doubt I will finish in time.:(

Jupiter, AVTPro, SolidSnakexxx, and Marsyas, thank you for the comments!

I was not to certain, if the colors were to bright (with my new display and all). But I'm glad you guys like them.:D As far as the clothing goes, I have alot of work to do on that. Just the toarso suit is at 5.7 Million polys, but I need to go back and delete the interior facing polys so I can divide it again ( not enough resolution).

Well my head ache is comming back, so I'm going to get going, best of luck to all who entered!