Salutations:
Greetings my good Sirs and Mesdames!
Welcome to my first ZBrush Central thread and post. Thank you for having me.
Synopsis:
This thread will showcase my ongoing 3D work on one of Games Workshops Tyranid creatures from their Warhammer 40,000 tabletop franchise. More specifically, the Carnifex variant.
Goal:
The purpose of this thread is to receive constructive critique, tips, tricks, morale boosting pats on the back, and/or good-natured abuse.
The goal of the Carnifex is to model it to completion and polypaint it. Then lighting and rendering.
Tools:
Maya, ZBrush and Photoshop.
Reference:
Below is a picture of the model in question and also the Carnifex configuration I will be using. The plastic model has several variations of “equipment” you can use when building it for tabletop warfare.
Setup:
I have purchased the actual plastic model and am/will be using them as reference material via photos, measuring tape, and staring at them in my hand with a perplexed expression.
Workflow:
I will take one of the plastic pieces, use the reference material to create an accurate low polygon scaffold in Maya, then transfer it to ZBrush for the first sculpting pass.
Then I move on to the next piece and continue in this manner until all the pieces are complete.
After all the pieces are assembled in ZBrush (and mesh connected) the second sculpting pass, aka Detailing, will commence when I have the whole picture so to speak.
Comic Sans! The font of the gods.
Experience:
I have zero experience in ZBrush and sculpting. I have more or less been a Maya polygon guy. But I must say, sculpting has proven to be much more fun then manipulating vertices in Maya. So much result, so fast. Its great.
Any critique on my workflow or sculpting would be very appreciated.
Some like to start with simpler things, but I have found that, for me personally, starting with something complicated works the best because it forces me to constantly look up how to do certain things and this usually gets lodged in my brain better then other methods I tried.
Screaming at the screen in rage may release some chemical that makes it easier to remember is my guess.
Warhammer 40,000 items have been a bit of a tradition for me to model when I learn new 3D software.
Years and years back, I started with 3D Studio Max, and created a Tau Gunship.
For Maya it was a Basilisk.
And now with ZBrush I have a Carnifex.
Although, to be honest, I have large parts of the Carnifex scaffold already completed in Maya. This is the result of an old modeling try I did purely in Maya around 8 years ago.
But I burned out on it because polygon modeling something as uuuh… ‘shapely’ as the Carnifex made my head spin and my soul drain into the floor.
But in ZBrush with a wacom, the process becomes much more artistic and more importantly, fun.
In conclusion:
Thank you for reading thus far and I hope I will be able create something faithful to the Tyranid source material and interesting for you fellow forumites to see, all the while broadening my knowledge of sculpting.