ZBrushCentral

Mouse Jeweller's Work Bench

Hellofellow zbrush users. This is one of my first posts here so please excuse me if Iseem a little nervous. My name is Morgan and I am a zbrush jeweller specificallyworking on metal solid pieces at the moment but I’m learning how to createsettings for stones at the same time.

The imageI’ve posted is of one of my first jewellery creations called ‘The Kiss’ basedon a broach by the same name by Rene lalique; very famous jeweller and glassartist with creations of unparallel complexity. <O:p></O<IMG>>

I createdthis as a test to see how detailed I could push this new media as the technologyto do this has only become more widely available in the last few years. To saymaking this was a steep learning curve is an understatement the zbrushing sideof it was fairly ‘simple’ (simple yea sure…) each piece was created using Zspheresand some imported geometry. The leaves I originally intended to have enamelled hencewhy they have a deep indent in them but that didn’t really happen because theyare too small. The faces and hair again are made from fairly simple geometry tohelp with the printing <O:p></O<IMG>>

Unfortunatelyit took 4 printing attempts to print this as the leaves and their stalks werefar too thin so in the end I had to amend it with strengthening geometry, inthe end the company I use to print my designs had to cast it in silver on sightbefore it could be sent to me. So it didn’t arrive in pieces. For those who arethinking of doing something like this the 2 most important tips I can give fromthis one are… <O:p></O<IMG>>

  1. BIGGERIS BETTER… it may look a little chunky on your screen but by the time it’s beenscaled down and printed it will look micro fine so don’t be afraid to inflateit a bit. <O:p></O<IMG>>

  2. learna little about metal casting and its tolerances, the more you can consider… theless pit holes you will avoid<O:p></O<IMG>>

finishedpiece was oxidized to add the black to it then bright polished to create thedistinction. <O:p></O<IMG>>

I’m planningto exhibit in International Jewellery London in September 4<SUP>th</SUP> – 7<SUP>th</SUP>www.jewellerylondon.com (I’munder exhibitor directory in M for mouse jeweller, please look as I have a fewmore finished pieces there as well as a time-lapse video)<O:p></O<IMG>>

If youhave any questions or comments please post… also please visit my website www.mousejeweller.co.uk <O:p></O<IMG>>ZBC1.jpg

[](http://javascript:zb_insimg(‘253150’,‘Crocadile Ring.jpg’,1,0))
[](http://javascript:zb_insimg(‘253144’,‘render engin mk3.jpg’,1,0))
[](http://javascript:zb_insimg(‘253148’,‘render engin mk4.jpg’,1,0))

Hi guys

The 2 posted above are probably my 2 favourite of the piecesI have made so far. They are real men’s rings; it takes me back to days of mychildhood when I had little plastic dinosaurs and such These follow a simple design convention ofring shank with a really detailed animal head on it where thehair/feathers/skin/hide flows down into the shank again…

with all of these jewellery pieces it is important to notethat while I have put some detail in I haven’t gone over the top because your limitedby the resolution of the printer (16microns or 0.016mm typical) and then by thepolishing method used as buff polishing (high speed rotating soft disksdesigned to polish metal to a high shine) will take a lot of the detail off ifyou aren’t careful. However if it is barrel polished (a slow rotating drum withball bearings, polishing media, and other items in) wont take as much off butit takes a day to get it to a good shine.

There are other methods but the more specialists you go themore they cost. So it’s more about the form rather than the fiddly details. Alsodon’t be afraid to carve in the details a little more than is realistic againfor the aforementioned reasons

The crocodile and T-rex startedoff life as zspheres. Slowly sculpted up to a nice level and then a shank areadded and the design continued down the shank. I use 3d max to do any basemeshing I can’t do in zbrush. I also use max for scaling and exporting pieceswhen I need to measure parts or add stone settings. I also use it for rendering using brazil

Each piece is around 1300 mm3 and would cost around £50 forsilver and £300 for 9ct gold. Should any one be interested >_> my shopwill go up soon on my site www.mousejeweller.co.uk

Please post or comment :slight_smile:

Fabulous! Love the jaguar ring!

hehe thanks… here’s a video of me making that

ill try and get it printed a cast in the next batch i send off:D

Beautiful! Look forward to seeing more ZBrush based pieces :+1: :slight_smile:

thats great u can print out gold, maybe good way to make their own custom wedding rings if/when people get married :wink:

Amazing stuff Morgan. Can you also put up more ZBrush models? Thank you so much for sharing with us.

Paul

Hi again guys… ask and you shall receive. For yourviewing pleasure I’ve attached some of the pieces I’m working on as well as afew rough tests. so here come some of the goodies.

<o:p </o<img>
<o:p</o<img>
Ok first off we have a WIP The Green Man, a verysignificant figure in British folklore and paganism. This was going to be apendant for a friend of mine before she backed out and moved away T_T… 3significant parts… <o:p></o<img>>

The leaves -which are simple geometry but are very thick sothey aren’t too brittle

The face - something I had from my early attempts atlearning zbrush. fairly simple but I think could use a little moredetail/gnarlyness

The horns, mushrooms and acorns – I’m sure a very nicesoup.

Important with this piece is the intersection of the partsto help the pieces strength.

Now from one style to something completely different. Ihave to doff my cap to the guys at eat3d for this one. Their tutorial on ZbrushHard Surface Techniques showed me the light for things like shadow box modellingand alpha brushes. Highly recommended. http://eat3d.com/zbrush_hardsurface

<o:p </o<img>

This piece is more a test. to see how this kind of creationwill look in metal. I’ve had allot of interest in this style of jewellerybecause its very manly. Though I’ve missed a trick with it because there needsto be a stone in the middle…

<o:p </o<img>

ok yes its the AC logo don’t worry I wont be selling thisone. this was more a test of alpha brushes… the image below shows this. still playing with the technique

thejewellery is a signet rings, just about the only unique piece of jewellery menhave as such they are expensive and difficult to produce because most are handengraved… I’m still testing the principle. I Will show more as I go.

Well that’s all for now folks. I will drag more out form mydusty folders and try and do some more videos of pieces.

Hope you all like it

Morgan

I love seeing zbrush jewelry! Where do you get these printed?

Thank you for sharing and for making Leopard ring video too. How you made the “Kiss”? I like it very much! :+1:

@kaleden@ I use a few UK based printers. main one being Protowax.

@15051975@ as it was one of my first pieces it was kind ofa mix of techniques. the faces started life as zspheres. as did the main loopof wood. the characters hair was just a base mesh sphere. the leaf clusterswhere imported mesh from 3d max.

I’m going to try and get some more videos made ~_^ somethinga little special for Zbrush Community.:+1:

Hi guys, here’s something a little new just for all of you. I created this pendant in about 2 hours usingshadowbox and a few other tools as well as a leaf I had created for anotherpiece. The final product is below

Now for those interested I have also created a time laps video showing how it was made. I think the mostimportant techniques I use when using shadow box is to use a dragrect mask onthe 2 planes your not really using so you can set the thickness of the pieceyour working on. second has to be for creating nice sweeping curves… turn onlazymouse for the masking stroke, sounds obvious I know but it helps allot…with a lazyraidous of 20-30

The final piece tallied out at about 4mill poly, decimated down to 350k ish which is the level Iusually decimate to because the .STL file you have to send to the printersneeds to be around 16MB (though this varies depending on who you print with).

If people really want me to I might write a short tutorial on preparing a piece of jewellery forprinting, with things like costing and all that useful jaz.

Thanks for sharing. I like the “men´s” rings especially the dinosaur.Looking forward to see more of your stuff.

Thats a New eye cooling stuff,thanks for sharing:+1:small_orange_diamond:+1:small_orange_diamond:+1:

Very cool dude !!

Classy work!

^^ thanks for the support guys. i have a few prints on the way from protowax… pictures to follow soon ~^

Thanks for sharing your process and some tips with us. It is nice to see ZBrush used for that.

Nice design to your jewelry too. Quite elegant.

Keep us posted with more :slight_smile:

Congratz on TR :sunglasses: :+1: ! Thanks for sharing so many pics and vids -> great stuff :sunglasses:

Exquisite work, congrats! Waiting for more great artwork :slight_smile: