Scared Silly Entry by Rory Little

[Rory_L]

Is there a way to export .jpg files directly from Z-Brush? It does seem strange that I can't upload any of Z-Brush's export file types to the ZB forum!

Today's been productive, as you can see.

I've modified the tree mesh, twisting the trunk and branches with Transpose and the Nudge brush and deleting redundant polys from the far side that we just won't see; it's now ready for subdivision sculpting.

The bat creature has been posed, using the base figure model; and it is now holding the stick and string, made from z-spheres.

The rubber bat was fun to make. Again, entirely z-spheres, massaged with the Move and Standard brushes and converted to an adaptive skin mesh. Moved into place with Transpose.

The grass was a side bit of a ZB cylinder, the unwanted polys hidden and deleted. Subdivided to level eight, it was masked with stamped instances of Alpha 07, (the spotty one) and then the grass blades were pulled out with a combination of Deformation/Inflate, the Move brush and one more application of the Inflate deformer, to fatten them up.

The moon is a z-sphere lozenge adaptive skin, smoothed, sphere-ized and subdivided. This makes a ball without any poles: no pinching!

I am concerned about my limited time and am trying to pull up all the elements of the image together at the same time. Should I run out of time, there won't be any obviously unfinished parts. Fingers crossed!

Cheers,

R

[Harmonic]

Looken Good! I am definitely getting a sense of the seen and liking the composition.

[Rory_L]

Worked on the base figure model today, adding edge loops and sculpting the resulting mesh with the Move, Standard and Nudge brushes. Nudge is really useful for pushing edges around the mesh without damaging the object's shape too much. Used in combination with Project Morph it solves almost all my topology problems.

It's probably a forlorn hope, but I'm hoping that this base mesh can with not too much effort be moulded into both the scared figure and the bat character. I've put edge loops into the ears in such a way that I have confidence that I'll be able to size them up to batty proportions. The wings are another matter!

R

[Harmonic]

Rory_L that is a fantastic base mesh, it should work great for both of your characters! Great edgelooping! What is Project Morph?

[Rory_L]

Thanks, Harmonic! I hope so.

Tools/Morph Target/ Project Morph is one of the new features of Z-Brush 3. If you're still using ZB2 you won't have encountered it yet, but when you do you'll love it! It is like the Morph slider function of ZB2, but doesn't take point order into consideration: only proximity is bothered with, so it will place points that you've shifted round from another part of the model, to positions that restore the mesh to its morph looks, but not its topology!.

I like the way your picture is turning out! Glad I could help.

R

[squeige]

Loving the progress, friend.

[Rory_L]

Bit by bit, little by little! Here are the teeth and eyes. I saw this great teeth edge looping technique in a thread I read today, but can't now remember who's it was. When I find it again I'll post my thanks here.

Both eyes and teeth are made using copies of the moon ball z-sphere I made earlier.

Cheers,

R

[Rory_L]

The result of having a bit of time at the weekend.

The meshes were subdivided to the fifth sub-D level and smoothed in places to remove pinching and uneven curves. Then I piled into the sculpting mainly with the Standard brush, with a J-shaped curve for the carved-in lines, Accurate Curves on; and the default curve, Accurate Curves off for building volumes.

At times I would activate the Lazy Mouse; step of 0.5, radius of 15 and smoothing of zero. This was used a lot on the bat, where I wanted a precise, machined look.

The Move brush helped me shove the imp's grin into place; and Pinch was employed to crisp up the gaps between the teeth.

The rubber bat is now in its final resting place in the composition, with its ears rotated out of the way of the string holding it up, thanks to the transpose tools.

I am having to resist flamboyant detail, because time is running out, but maybe this is a good thing, as it forces me to remain true to the boldness of the original concept.

R

[Rory_L]

A small update. These belong to the imp. The wings were copied from the rubber bat and shoved behind the imp's body. Wonderful liberties we can take with character modelling if we don't have to see them all the way around!

R

[dustbin1_uk]

I just wanted to let you know I love this idea, I've had my eye on this thread since the start of the comp.

It's a great in concept, funny in design and a enough work to see through to the end of the contest.

It's looking great, can't wat to see some RGB on those sculpts soon.

[Rory_L]

Thanks Mark!

I'm actually thinking of rendering this as toon shaded monochrome, with spot colour red in the man's mouth, but we'll see...

R

[Rory_L]

Found it! The guy who's modelling inspired my characters' teeth is Tomasz Modzelewski. Thank you Zeet!

R

[nightwoodwolf]

cool characters

[Rory_L]

Spent an evening trying out the Matcap tech and the High Definition subdivision layers, neither of which new features I've had anything more than a cursory play with till now. I think there's about 30 million polys in this image. HD is going to be invaluable to me not only in defining the man's hair, but also in eradicating the poly lines you sometimes get on cavity shaded models.

I'll have to push on with the sculpting tomorrow. Tonight was by no means a waste of time, but it has left me feeling happy about how this could all look in the end, but more anxious about completion.

R

[squeige]

Hey rory can you give a little more info on toon shading? I searched forum but no one really explains they do give the mats but no explanation found, I wanna go with a combination shader of realistic with a line... very cool shader by the way