Heya guys! Need some help with first ZBrush model

[system]

What’s up guys?

I’ve just picked up Zbrush and am excited to dive in and create them awesome sculpts. The surge of info is overwhelming but that’s what learning’s about right?XD Back to the topic, I’ve recently started my very first project (which also happens to coincide with my school’s assignment)-- making a realistic character model. In my case, I chose to sculpt an original character in Zbrush. My goal is to reach a Final Fantasy-ish finish… or at least as close as I can get ><. Here are some of the problems I’m facing:

i) I’ve gotten down the rough sculpt and am (kinda) done with the face. The nose and lips though are a real challenge and I would really appreciate if anyone could point out any areas of improvement.

ii) Also, I’m trying out dynamesh on the hair and the eyepatch. Haven’t gotten to the hair details yet but one problem I find with the eyepatch is that I lose details (?) I’m not sure if this is the right way to do this, but I mask the areas which need to stick out, inverse mask and inflate. I then Ctrl+drag but I tend to lose the “crisp” feel at this point. Things tend to get “blurry”? I’ve already set blur to 0 and projection is on. What should I do?

iii) Dynamesh isn’t liking my main model. If I switch groups on I get holes. If i switch projection on I get random pixols poking out all over… like a lot >< If I don’t I lose details. And even if i ramp up resolution all the way to 2048 with no blur, I still end up with a blurry model. I’ve currently settled to proceed without dynamesh for the main model but what are your recommendations?

iv) I think I messed with something. Currently, if MatCap Gray is on, the whole model will be a nice, uniform material. However, if i choose any other material, everything else except the head and shoulder changes. Cool as it is, it’s a problem I need to get fixed (lol). What should I do?

Sorry for the long post. I’m really new (and stuhped). Hope you guys can help and I look forward to learning with all of you XD Cheers~

Attachments

[tigerheart]

In my opinion, dynamesh is not suitable for high details. For the point 2 and 3 i suggest to follow this kind of workflow: make your basemesh with dynamesh and develop your model as far as you can go, without getting too much into details. focus on your main shape. Then turn off dynamesh and either make a retopo of your model, or duplicate and zremesh it. point is to have good topology for further details. reproject your model level of subdivision by level of subdivision, watching out for those spike(if you get too many of these check your parameters). Finally you’ll be able too dive in your high res details.
Dynamesh is a great tool for sketching and hard surface. but it could be hard for high level detailling.

iv) you probably have some polypaint. check for the pencil icons, in your subtool tab, and turn it off

[system]

Thanks tigerheart ! I’ll try those out and post the results!