ZBrushCentral

Teeg's Sketchbook

About time I started a sketchbook!

I’ve been working on improving my speed, and trying not to worry about imperfections (I’m a raging perfectionist…) So, to that end I’ve been (speed-ish) sculpting some characters from Mortal Kombat. (I’m not a particular fan, and all the knowledge I have of the characters is from a cursory read of the Wikipedia pages [so, if you’re a die-hard fan, please forgive anything that is inconsistent with the games]; I just chose it because most of the characters are realistic humans and that’s what I want to practice right now.)

Liu Kang (~3hrs)

Johnny Cage (~3hrs)

Raiden (had to work some stuff out, and I got interested: ~8hrs)

with some quick polypaint and a bit of fun in photoshop:

No ladies as yet. I did have a couple of tries at Sonya Blade, but she’s surprisingly difficult, and I wasn’t happy with either outcome. More Mortal Kombat to come! (unless I get bored of it…)

Attachments

johnny_cage_clay.jpg

liu_kang_clay.jpg

raiden_clay.jpg

raiden3.jpg

Raiden came out very well! Remembers me the old times playing at arcades…

Thanks Umberto!

Good stuff from my first commenter :slight_smile:
The nostalgia…

Hey Matt! Glad to see you here! I’ve been keeping an eye on your thread (looking great as always!) although I haven’t had time to find anything constructive to say about your excellent work…feel like I’m still trying to catch up tbh, even though I was here before you! :evil::wink: Hope you can get back to posting more stuff for us to enjoy soon!

Ha, not much of a commenter myself :slight_smile:
Keep up the good work, and enjoy the pace of your progress and process, that’s just as important as any resulting sculpts.
The way is the goal, and all that…
all the best

Couldn’t agree more! Very zen:)

Next up, Kano:
kano.jpg

Finally, Sonya Blade! This took far too long. The pose was a real challenge…
sonya.jpg

sonya_clay.jpg

Wow! Cool pose! Did you sculpt it asymmetrical from the scratch?

Thanks Umberto!

Not entirely. I did the blocking-in for the head symmetrically (didn’t sculpt the eyes or ears symmetrically though, which was a pain in the ass), and I also did the blocking-in for the torso and upper arms just to give me the anatomical landmarks to help me pose her. Then after I posed her, I added the lower arm and hand and sculpted the lips, body and clothes etc. asymmetrically.

Nice workflow to know! I’m still struggling with my fear of asymmetry :smiley:

Well, Liu Kang up at the top is 100% asymmetrical, and it kind of shows. On the other hand, Johnny Cage is 90% symmetrical, and it also shows. I’ve settled into a workflow where I set up my base symmetrically (essentially, get all the measurements/proportions sorted out), and then abandon symmetry entirely. It’s a good flow to get natural results, and it’s also great for practising anatomy, but it can be tedious and a little easy to lose track of where things (muscles etc.) should be, especially when using dynamesh.

I think there’s a good workflow to be had with Zremesher though, since it’s so much faster to get something passable than Qremesher was. I’m currently using dynamesh from start to finish, which stops me from using poseable symmetry, but I’m thinking a quick Zremesh after the initial block-in will work well to get a nice symmetrical mesh to pose…