ZBrushCentral

Silver Surfer: Cosmic Longboarder Debut

Hi folks,
I have been tremendously enjoying these forums and all the outstanding work featured here since I discovered Zbrush about 3 months ago and have finally been getting into it myself. Hence my first picture post of a work in progress, with humble request for critique and comments. Nothing fancy or too complicated as a Zbrush debutant, so I thought with the F4:Rise Of the Silver Surfer movie release coming up, my personal take on the very cool cosmic longboarder would be just the project to begin with. Eyes, full body and longboard are in the works and will be posted as updates as I progress. This has been a lot of fun so far , quite addictive actually. No more clay to clean out from under the nails. Lol. Let me know what you think of what I have so far! Thanks and keep up the great work everybody!
PS: If someone could tell me how people get that great detail into lips, I’d be eternally grateful!:smiley:
Silversurfer1a.jpg

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i think that is really impressive. that chrome looks is amazing. did u do that completely in zbrush. how mush did zbrush cost u? great work. please post ur progress!

Thank you very much for the kind comment. It’s greatly appreciated:D !

I’m glad a fellow comic-book addict likes it. (Simply deducting as much from your screen-name)

The sculpt and chrome material are Zbrush. I then pulled a matte in Photoshop and edited the pics for some more contrast and the glow.

About the cost, man dont ask! Put me down about 400 Euros, guess that’s $480 or something. Europe is expensive, I tell you that!:rolleyes: But it was well worth it, just like Photoshop, I would not want to go without that program ever again. Simply amazing, finally I can really concentrate on my artwork instead of the UI and get some real work done quick.

Someone pointed out to me that it is hard to evaluate the sculpt with the chrome material. True, a lot of detail gets lost, so here are some pics of the slightly edited head sculpt with regular fastshader material and high polys.

Again, any and all suggestions for improvement are very welcome and highly appreciated.

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Thought, I’d post my progress. With the whole body at about 1.5m polys, I think I’ve got the upper body done so far, except for some minor details. Still working on detail of hands, legs and feet. C&C’s welcome as always.

WIPfront.jpg

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The anatomy is not of someone´s “resting“ muscles.
Its looks like a bodybuilder posing.
Otherwise better than what I can do.

Are you talking about the basic form and proportion of the lips? If so, I have a hell of a time with that too. But if you’re talking about the little wrinkles and fine surface details, I would guess that most people just use alphas in projection master to accomplish those.

I really like your Silver Surfer, btw. I agree that your character’s anatomy is not at rest, but it’s very fitting for a comic character and especially for a guy who is forever balancing himself on a levitating surf board. I bet his muscles hardly ever appear at rest.

wow such a gem =)

Hello,

That is very nice sculpting. Keep up the good work in regards to that.
For Silver Surfer, it would be good to examine reference images of the character more. In my observations, he has never had visible ears. It might be good to take into account when detailing him that his musculature and skin usually appear more as if he is coated in a material, not realy made of the silver substance. Don’t forget the built in speedos and boots.
I don’t want to take away from the nice sculpting you have done. Since you are putting the time into it, I would like to see a piece true to the character.

Keep up the good work,
Bill C.

I agree, the awesome that is silver surfer doesn’t have ears. There are light mounds where his ears used to be though.

It seems you also misplaced the triceps. They should cover the entire anterior of the arm. They should also split almost half and half along the anterior of the arm. Beyond that i’d say just tone down the muscles a bit and you’re good (subtelty can go a long way in muscular anatomy).

Thanks for the nice comments and recommendations so far. Great, keep ‘em coming!

okssipin: Thanks! True that he looks very flexed, I wanted to get that comic book superhero look. Those guys show muscular detail even in clothing, crazy!:o

Salmongod: I have to agree lips are a bitch to model, but I just cant seem to get that fine surface detail, looks good in projection master before I pick the model back up, but totally crappy after. I have been reading up on a number of other related threads and am trying to fix that. I thought there might be some other modelling trick or secret to it. Looks great on some other pics in the featured gallery.

yari jindou: Thanks for the compliment.:smiley:

wp_capozzi: Thanks, Bill. Yeah, I have to agree on the ears. I totally missed that. Looks like I got to carried away when modelling after my real life reference and that important detail slipped by me. I’ve got it covered now. For the speedos, I had not decided whether to go with the classic version or with the newer one. I like Ron Lim’s rendition a lot and was going to keep that decision open. I will see. Same goes for the board, I’ not sure yet whether to go with the absolute classic longboard or the shorter version with the fin seen in later renditions.
As far as the boots go, do you mean that he doesn’t have/show toes? I’ve got that one covered already! Lol, saves me a lot of scultping work so I don’t really mind.
Yeah, the material is a tricky issue. I have been playing with a lot of different choices, but can’t really make up my mind. Reference images from comics don’t really help there either since I feel he mostly looks very blue-ish chrome in the newer computer colored books. I really would like to go with a quicksilver (liquid) look but haven’t figured out how to get that yet. I am looking at a sculpture by Randy Bowen and that one has a matte look, which I like but haven’t really been able to duplicate so far. I don’t really like the feel the material has they used in the F4:ROTSS movie, ( bit too much like polished steel, from what is visible in the trailer) so I wont go with that for reference. Also, for most tests, I found that whatever material I use it takes a lot of detail away, making the muscles look smoother and kind of flat, if modelled with a softer appearance. So to preserve detail in the final model, I figured, I‘d go has hard and dry on the modelling as I could without making it look completely flexed, striated and veiny. I’ll post some material tests later, otherwise I am open to suggestions and willing to try any materials other Zbrushers might might want to share.

Pieisgood: Thanks for the comments. Yup, I did misplace the split between the lateral and long head of the triceps, gotta get that properly aligned. Many thanks for pointing it out! As far as the triceps not covering the whole anterior part, I can’t quite follow you. Looking at my anatomy reference it seems I placed long and medial heads just fine?!

Here’s a material test of the one I am curently favoring. Maybe not a world of differences, but quite the different stuff from the one used on the head. Man, I have to learn to save discarded material choices, cant find the other ones.:roll_eyes:

Pic2 is the same material ,but has more contrast applied in post.

testmaterial7lessglowsmall.jpg

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