ZBrushCentral

My 10.000 Hour Rule Logbook

Hello everyone,
just wanted to say something before I start posting threads after threads.
One of the great advantages of being unemployed and living in your parents house is that we can do whatever we want with the time we have at our disposal. I could go on playing Skyrim (Level 44 btw) or Mass Effect 2 or Gears of War 3 or Black Ops or Pes 2011 or MW2 or FM 2012, watching Game of Thrones or Supernatural or Walking Dead or House or Terra Nova and even Fringe and Naruto or One Piece or Bleach, like I’ve been doing since the last summer or I can improve my modeling/sculpting skills. I’ve never worked with ZBrush before but I always love the tool and the results that a lot of great artists achieve. So i’ve decided to create and WIP Logbook where my evolution, dedication and research under the subject of modeling/sculpting will be explored, focused on the development and study of realistic characters. It will be a long run I know but I think it will help me. It’s my objective to have a regular participation on the forum and get to meet a lot of artists that share the same passion for Art like me. I’ll do my best to help in whatever matter I can, hope you guy’s can afford some time too to share some insights and tips/critics of the work/studies of my development. I’m going to show some of my first tests with Zbrush that I could achieve until now. I’m recording the time that I’ve been dedicating to Zbrush so I can see how my evolution is progressing and how much time I need to do finish the different stages. It’s my first time so don’t expect too much.

I’ll be posting along the way, I know this is nothing special but the real objective is to record my progress along the way inside Zbrush.
Until now I have exactly 11 Hours and 10 minutes dedicated to Zbrush and these where the best results, following several tutorials that I could get.
Check out my logbook - My 10.000 Hour Logbook- to see other stuff related to my research because will you find some interesting links related to the study of topology and anatomy.
Hope you find it useful.
Cheers

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good luck on your journey
i started a blog where i have been tracking my progress for about a year now and it really helps.
as for your timekeeping i had a question. are you tracking the time on your studies as well, or only the time spent inside zbrush?

I’m tracking only the time I work on ZBrush. Every time I take a break or browse over the Internet I stop the count-watch. It’s great to watch your performance in terms of time expended.
Well, I’ll try to explain why I’m doing this. It all started because of a need and desire of working in the big industry, films, games, etc… and to achieve a certain technical & artistic level to get there. I always heard about that 10.000 hour rule, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kq2n1Jlx5P0, and decided to read the book (Outliers) that talks about it. It’s a great one btw and I truly recommend everyone to take a look. So after I became unemployed I decided to try to implement that method in an area that I really enjoy - sculpting/modeling. I started watching a lot of tutorials and reading books and at the same time implementing what I was seeing and reading in ZBrush and Max. After I read the interview that AREA did to Alessandro Baldasseroni I was able to know how much time he dedicates to it’s job and about others artists too. Well this gived me an ideia that I should start to control my time to see how much I needed to create an piece and at the same time with the objective of reaching the 10.000 hours dedicated solely to sculpting/modeling. The blog came after this conjecture. I hope I didn’t bother you a lot.
Thanks

:+1: ZBrush is the best video game and games are just filler go for it !

Wow- reading you thread is very inspiring…i feel like I need work harder and start timing myself as well. Good luck with you endeavor…I will definitely be keeping a eye on your progress as I work on my own!

Thanks guy’s I truly hope I can create something interesting.
I’ll be posting my progress along the way.
Cheers

I’ve started studying a bit of anatomy and some more technical drawings books. I started drawing some heads, positions/movements to use as a guide for zspheres among other stuff.
I’m doing these drawings in the bus or in any place I can so I can start feeling comfortable with proportions, without having to check or see my references. When we draw a square in perspective, almost eveyone of us can do it almost with the eyes closed and thats the same thing that I’m trying to achieve here through repetition and constant study. I hope I can do the same thing when I’m drawing/sculpting human characters with right proportions without even looking or worrying me if what I’m doing it’s right or not… I’m letting some of the studies here, you can check the rest in my blog if you feel interested.
Cheers

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This one was really a pain in the ass and I hated finishing this up because I wasn’t getting the proportions right. It took me quite some time and honestly I thought it was a lot easier than what turned to be. The objective was to finish it and I was able to, I don’t like it but the main objective is to log the WIP. I started with ZSpheres, create an Adaptive Skin, Poly Model with the Move/Inflat Brush a bit in the low geometry and started sculpting dividing several times.

you;re off to an impressive start my friend :slight_smile:
don’t be discouraged if you arent getting the resulst you are looking for
we all have to start somewhere

Thanks, I appreciate.
You are right, the thing is that this was was particular difficult because I knew I wasn’t getting it right and I started to became a little frustrated.
I decided that I wanted to finish it and Thats what I did, even if the result didn’t make me happy.
It’s a long WIP we will see what I’ll be able to do until the next summer…

Hello everyone,
here is another wip sculpt in Zbrush 4 R2.
I think I’m starting to understand some of the proper preceding s for sculpting with ZBrush, of course this is head nothing special but I’m happy with the final result. I started using an Default DynaWax Sphere for this head study, following by the Move Brush to push the initial forms, Standard for the first steps until I get a nice shape. I deactivated Dynamesh and Divided the Mesh until the 4th level and continued adding details with Clay and ClayBuildUp. I used the Standard + Standard Dam and Divided the Mesh to get some hard edges in certain areas of the face. See you guy’s next time and have fun with this amazing tool.

Hello everyone,
I decided to get an skeleton reference and started sculpting from that. At the beginning it almost felt like I was cheating, it was just like drawing with the help of markers or a grid but I have to be honest it helps a lot when you don’t know the proportions exactly. It’s really a good reference and after I saw the video tutorials from Sorin Lupu (Human Body Proportions Setup) and the way he built it’s character i didn’t felt that bad, it’s a process like any other and a very good i might say. I would like to be able to sculpt without the use of a skeleton but until I don’t get the proportions in my head I think I’ll continue doing it until I feel more comfortable. I bought some good books that helped me along the way, especially “Atlas of Human anatomy for the artist” and the 3rd edition of “Strength Training anatomy”.
This time I decided to use some alphas to give more detail to the character and i realized that i suck and it’s needs a lot of more work. I started thinking in using ZApplink to texture the character but perhaps another time because I dedicated really a lot of time to build this face and I think it was time to start another, face or body.
Well I hope you like it, i feel I need to study a lot more cause there are times where i don’t know what brushes to use and when to stop using some and use others but that comes with time I think.
Cheers

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The best advice I could give you is read and study as much as you can. And learn as many methods as you can until you find something that works for you. You’ll feel it lol

http://www.pointpusher.blogspot.com/ <-pointpusher out here on his page you will learn a lot. I like how he peaces his models together. I still sample his method here and there if you look at some of my work.

but if you look are my super old stuff http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?82282-mL-s-Sketchbook-1-s-Post.

And my new stuff when I really start studying and looking for the best method to get the stuff out of my head and into Zbrush http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?122991-Hello-Zbrushers!!. I still have a loooong way to go. But I remember when I was were you are and wanted some tips. Happy Zbrushing keep at it don’t stop you will get it.

Thank you I appreciate your ideas.
Good work for you too.
Cheers