VictorCS's SketchBook

[VictorCS]

Hello, hello. I'm the 22 year old kid from Norway. I've been lurking around since late January, I actually posted a post about a UV border problem 31.jan I think. There are so many great artists here, and so much epic art and alot of inspiration. I've been here pretty much every day since february, looking at the work that's going on here. I bet it's time for me to "join" the community now, instead of lurking. I'll be posting my stuff in this thread, sketches, wip's and the usual stuff. First I'll begin with some of the things i've done so far.

More info about him later ( watch out for a female anatomy WIP longer down if you're sensitive ):


Skip this if you dont wanna read my boring ZBrush discovery ^_^:
Around Xmas 09 I watched District 9 and Transformers, and decided to check out 3D tracking. As I'd been using 3d max since 2004 ( able to make boxes and add textures, not much, just the very basic ), I decided to make a "lift a box" movie. Actually easy. At some point in the middle of january I wanted to check out the possibilities making human heads and stuff. The old "make a box and push polys" never worked, tried that a few years ago, and didnt look anythng like a human or alien for that matter.

Somehow I stumbled upon Zbrush, not really, tried it 3-4 years ago, but didnt understand much of it, probably because I got lost into this 2d painting thing. Still after I had it installed I actually searched for a "move some sliders and make a head without the need of skills".

If you skipped, continue here:
I went back from google, and entered ZBrush.exe, suddenly I just discovered it's potential. I drawed a 2.5D image ( again getting "lost" ), but it was just great. And drawing with symmetry made me realise "this is nice".

This was the drawing I drawed 15.jan.2010 ( a guy and his dog? ):


Then I tried shaping a head out of a sphere, and from there I discovered Zclassroom and ZBrushCentral and how ZBrush can shape whatever you want it to shape. I havent done much clay ( a little bit in school as everyone else has ), but it's so fun and i'm addicted. And it hit me, this is what I wanna do ( beside compose stuff on my piano ^_^ ).

First head and my second head:




Early head study:


Mr. Proud:


Female Anatomy WIP:


And now, at last here is AlienDude, he's starring in my latest 3D tracked movie, was "scheduled" for release in February on Vimeo, but I need time to complete, and sometimes time I dont have. I have a scene left and sound fx and stuff. His topology is screwed ( I cant belive I managed to rig him full of polys and just messy ), and his anatomy too, his shoulders are way to pushed forward. But still, I like him cos he was my first real project in ZBrush... I'll probably be making a new version of him in a few years when I get skilled enough.

Added glow in PS, I like him in a dreamy white room. Rendered in ZBrush with pearlmat:


Here are som closeups, you can see the topology is a bit messy probably, and his feet and hands arent actually detailed at all, and he doesnt have eyes. added these in 3d max.



More to come soon, I just hope all the images have been uploaded correctly, and I dont hope any is too big, if so I'll fix it, just gonna figure out how to thumb them. I'll be uploading another creature tomorrow, my Trisect. That was my second project, and my third is soon to be finished. After the third is finished, I'll start WIP'ing and hopefully get some tips and crits on my projects. And hopefully get better at sculpting. Comments are welcome, but I dont think i'll start resculpting any of these I've posted because these i'm finished with. You can only do a sculpt for so long ^_^

[VictorCS]

I've been sculpting some heads, started out like a likeness project. Not that it should have, because I figured likeness is hard, and harder when I dont know the basic rules of face propotions or body propotions. Been reading about these for a few weeks and studied some anatomy, still does. I'll be posting some wip's of these soon, need all the input I can get, because to be able to sculpt a face of someone is one of my goals. Even if it'll take years.

Should I sculpt with a mesh that already has a hole where the mouth should be, or should I add it when I retopologize before the final detailing? How do you make your mouth if you're gonna animate it?

This wip I sculpted in zbrush, then did retopo before I exported it to 3dmax, making a mouth "chamber", and then back to zbrush for further detailing I have not yet started because I lack ideas, so I probably need some ^_^. Basic idea was to make a cyborg thing with hard and soft surfaces:





Here is my Trisect, the background is shot with a Canon 450D last year. The Trisect is sculpted and retopologized in ZBrush and polypainted, as is the branch he is walking on too. Rendered in 3D Studio Max.




Can someone please explain that {ATT=12345&thumb=1} thing for me ( { is a [ ), because I cant get it to work

[VictorCS]

ZBrush keeps entertaining me, today I felt as excited as I'm the day before Xmas, I just had to do it. I've been playing around with transpose, and it's really powerful.



Anyway, I have some problems with my third project, it's quite finished, but I have some "problems" with the transpose. Could be that I need to be more careful and just move stuff very gently, but I thought transpose master would work this out by itself. This is the source of my problems, a yet nameless creature ( sorry for teh huge picture, I still dont understand the thumb thing, but I guess we all have big monitors, right ^_^ ):


And here is the problem, when I go "into" transpose master and transpose him in the pose I want, the clothing is not following. Any easy fix for this, or just gentle transposing?:


I'm also working on a new idea, Hoodie, I got after playing with my 3 year old sister. One of her stuffed toys has a hoodie that I put on my hand,and voila:


Here it is so far:

[Gary Komar]

looks like your hooked on Z the bug render in max looks good keep goin if you enjoy lots of fun zbc is a great place to learn

[VictorCS]

looks like your hooked on Z the bug render in max looks good keep goin if you enjoy lots of fun zbc is a great place to learn

Doesnt seem to be a hooked Z either, but i'll just transpose it gently. First I need to get someone to take a picture of me running and jumping after a "target". Reference pictures ^_^


So while I was working on my male anatomy study I found myself lost in something. Working too long on something makes your brain cover up faults it seems. I was sure the propotions was ok (i'm gonna add some front/side/back pictures of the body later today, hopefully to get some feedback):

BEFORE/AFTER


Here are some "t-poses" of my trisect straight from zbrush, just for "showing off" I dont like the fangs, but they are covered with hair in my final render tho...

[color=#9a9a9a]]TrisectFS.jpg" title="]TrisectFS.jpg">

[adampof]

good start
kepp practising

[VictorCS]

Thanks, yes, i'll keep practice 24/7

Yesterday I played around alittle bit with UDK ( that unreal engine ). Spent a whole day trying to figure out how to unwrap the uv and texture thing, but then it hit me that uvmaster can make these texture maps easily. Fairly easy engine, fast and powerful. Too bad making a level is time consuming


At the bottom is my male anatomy from different sides. ( Just a little warn, even tho it's nto that realistic ). I made this concept about this alien that's in a lab running after one of his experiments. Already posted him because some transposing problems, anyway, here is the experiment, a Eloweiler, half elephant, half rottweiler. Testing out the SSS in 3d max. I'm gonna give him some elephant wrinkles and say it's finished. Then I'll just have to make a lab and pose them properly.



And here are some random test renders, quick posing to see what i've visualised:



And then I said I would upload this image of my male anatomy, need some input if there is something to change, I'm not satisfied with the way it looks from the side, is something weird there I think, maybe too straight. ( should I consider this as "warning about nudity" in the title? )

[VictorCS]

My computer was fried by the thunder, just the PSU and network card tho. At that moment I was working on my next head, middle aged man. Good thing I usually save a new file when I've done some improvements to be sure not to be stuck with a corrupt file. So I only lost a few minor wrinkles.



I'm nearly finished with the front of his face, gonna add a couple of more wrinkles, then i'll need to give the rest of his head the same amount of threatment. Gonna go for a different brush for the hair, this is just for the test. He looks kinda flat under his eyes, gotta take a closer look at that. Ear needs some work too. Did a polypaint test also, and played a little bit with layering in photoshop instead of rendering it in 3dmax.





And just a little abstract body artwork I did, playing around with the male anatomy i'm working on, posing the body, testing sss and light/shadows in 3D Max.

[VictorCS]

Making a small lab in 3D max for my alien running after the small creature. Has been on hold tho, I've been working on my "Hoodie"'s shoes. The concept was to make an evil skinny dude in a hoodie, but it's about to turn into something else. He will be an african basketball player.



Here's the quick shape of the head I made two days ago. I'm gonna work on adding details after I'm finished detailing his hoodie.



I've learned alot during the making of this shoe, and ofcourse I've learned from errors I've done. I actually started out doing a shoe with several subtools, and did the lases without the use of zspheres ( big mistake ). I started with a new shoe, using layers instead of extracting subtools ( not that subtools are a bad thing, but here i felt it helped with layers ), and making the lases with zspheres. What I will try to improve with a next shoe will be the jagginess ( not the aliasing ) you can see on edges on my shoe ( low polycount maybe, still not that low tho ), and make some of the transitions more defined. Inside of shoe wont be visible so havent spent much time there. I just need to color the metal rings and add a pattern under the shoe. Texture turned out to be TMNT themed, not planned ^_^

[VictorCS]

I'd say myself finnished with sculpting my "Office Man", I will try to do one last render in 3D Max tho, to get some SSS shader beauty, and a more texture feel to the suit. Will try adding eyelases too, and "real" eyes. Been working too long with it, struggeling with projecting/retopologizing clothes and had some problems with the normal maps that made me use additional time in 3D Max figuring stuff out. The straight lines/details in the suit was a pita with mouse, but I gotta use what i'm stuck with. Maybe santa will be nice to me this year giving me a wacom ^_^



Sculpting the hair wasnt the easiest. Still trying to figure out better ways, I figured because I couldn't start from to top of the skull and draw all the way down, I started sculpting it from the neck, and moved up half ways ( drawing downwards ), overlapping the lower "hairs". That way I didnt get any seams.



My "Experimental Lab", everything done in 3D max tho, but as soon as I add some more details on the desk I'll add my creatures made in ZBrush.

[Eiad]

You're moving along. Great job

[VictorCS]

Been a while since my last post, first a one week vacation, then two weeks of non-stop playing guitar. And my computer almsot exploded the day after the lightning struck. Motherboard was black, and alot of smoke in my room and that stuff. I replaced my Phenom 2.5ghz 9850BE X4 with a new Phenom II 1055T X6, together with a new motherboard and 4GB of DDR3 ram. I'm gonna throw another 4GB in when I buy the ATI 6870 that's not released yet. 4GB just doesnt cut it, atleast not for photoshop and huge panorama pictures ^_^



Baseball man with hoodie and that lab scene has been on pause, while I've been working on a beach scene ( man, woman, surfboard and a shop of some kind on a beach ), got the idea mainly because they air Pacific Blue here, and that I sorta started making a Smurf beach scene a couple of months back, in April. I guess I could show of some renders, I only made it because my little sister wanted me to make a smurf, and that smurf turned into more smurfs, and then a beach.

I really wanna finish it, atleast make a better beach chair and parasole, and maybe a cassette player and some food of some kind placed on the ground ( and add smurfette ). My box modeling skills wasnt/isnt great ( learned alot in the prossess of making the labratory tho ). And designing a fitting beach chair is harder than I expected. Smurfs was created/posed entirely in zbrush, as was the beachball and shells. Beach, the parasole and chair was brought into zbrush for detailing and shaping. Here are some renders from my smurf scene, not too highres.


SURFBOARD WAY DOWN INTO TEH SAND I NOTICED


While in the writing of this I see it's 4AM, so I'll just up the smurfs now, and i'll post my other stuff later.

[VictorCS]

Here is my Surferdude ( Surfergirl should be done in a few weeks I guess ), I took the male body I've already made when studying anatomy, refined and detailed some stuff and gave it a head.
It seems I can start a project and it grows depending on what's on my mind. I exported the lowres head and body, merging it into one piece in 3d max,
brought it back to zbrush, fixing the topology around the neck. Then I used project all to get the details from the highres onto the new mesh.



Wanted this guy to have a surfer haircut, so I decided to search on google, and there was a picture of Jason Momoa with his dreads.
I decided to try out some dreads. Need some detailing on those. The main goal for this project was to make a fullsize character.
Possible a playable one. The body itself has 14k tris, I bet that could be lower. together with shorts, eyes and hair it'll reach 15k.
I need to study game creation a little more and baking of textures etc.

I think he kinda looks like the actor in Moon, Sam Rockwell, wasnt trying any likness tho. I kinda like the half shaved head,
but I dont know yet. Gotta figure it out when I get the rest of the scene done. ( back of the shorts has a topo issue, eye brows need a fix too )



Here is a closeup of the skin detail I've been trying to make. I wanna try doing texturing as realistic as possible with polypaint, instead of using real images.
Sure, with my experience, there is a limit. But I guess you need to try to get better.



And a little topology image, how does it look, what can be done to make it better. And I always seem to get to many edgeloops in the neck:

[VictorCS]

Havent sculpted too much lately, learning alot of stuff in 3d max, but here's some busts without shoulders ( can these be called busts? ). The woman sculpt in the right lower corner ( ears topology omg ^_^ ) is a swedish actor I tried to replicate, named Sofia Ledarp. The man over her I based on a very famous man, but my intention wasnt to really do him. The other two are something I just did for practice, the upper a native something, and bellow is a female head. I guess I need to print out a paper of the human head anatomy, and hang it on my wall, to get my propotions better.

[talster]

nice busts!

yup, shoulder's aren't required, and conversely you can add arms and a torso and still call it a bust.

How big are your busts' eyes by the way? They should fit almost inbetween the corners of the eyes (if they don't already), and be centered slight above them too. Checking for that, and also the curvature of your necks in relationship to the heads will add a lot more accuracy (and believability) to your head models. Female necks generally arch away from the head (see google images: "female profile") whereas men's neck-to-head orientation are more vertical (see google images: "men side profile")

Keep up the great work!!!