Lara Croft, Tomb Raider Reborn (competition entry)

[teeg000]

Hey, it’s be a while since I last posted. I’ve been busily learning as much as I can about sculpture and ZBrush, and practising quietly.

I saw a competition on deviantArt to illustrate the new Lara Croft and thought I’d put what I’ve learned into action.
This is the finished image I submitted to the competition (rendered in Z, composited and tweaked in Photoshop). Hope you like it!

Details! (Note the extra eye shine was painted in photoshop, because I didn’t have time to work it out in ZBrush)

Clay versions:

And a turnaround (I only fully sculpted the parts that would be visible in the final image, so there’s not much to see on the back…)

I’m really pleased with how it turned out, although there are some obvious imperfections (god hands are difficult…)
Crits are very welcome! Although this piece is finished, I would really appreciate any advice/learning resources etc. for improving my skills in any areas you consider lacking.

To achieve this piece I extensively referenced Ryan Kingslien’s “Realistic Game Characters” (fantastic, even for non-game characters), got some essential advice from Paul Gaboury’s book “Zbrush Professional Tips + Techniques”, and followed the fibermesh techniques as described by Joseph Drust here: http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?165716-FiberMesh-Hair-Testing-Experimentation (sorry Joseph, I couldn’t afford the Digital Tutors tutorial, so thanks a lot for posting your description here!)

Also big thanks to Neobear and Felon2 for their compositing breakdowns. Helped a lot! (Check them out: http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?176083-N-75-(tutorial-added-Pg-2)&p=1006304&viewfull=1#post1006304 and http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?89241-Tortle-Rider-WIP&p=1006613&viewfull=1#post1006613)

Attachments

[Darukin]

hey great work on this one , turned out well!
I would have thought there would be more replies

Keep it up!

[leegyz]

Well done indeed, a lot of skill displayed here.
I like her expression, tired, very uncomfortable, absolutely clueless of the future, and excessively freaked out.
very well done on the cloth effects, they have a good sense of gravity to them.

[teeg000]

Darukin, thanks a lot man!

Leegyz, thank you! I’m glad you like the expression. I was careful not to overdo it (I really don’t like exaggerated expressions) and wasn’t sure if I’d gone far enough, but your description is exactly what I was aiming for

Here’s some add-ons. Basically I had a few problems with the raw output from BPR wrt the rim light, so here’s a few notes on how to deal with it (mostly for my own future reference, but I hope it can be helpful to someone else too…)

I used a 3 light setup: key, fill, and rim lights. I made diffuse renders just using basic material (I forgot to turn down the specular though, which caused some fiddling with levels later to minimize it) with a white fill colour. I made two diffuse renders, one with the key + fill lights and one with just the rim light. I also did shadow passes for the key light and the rim light

Fixing the rim light diffuse:

As you can see circled in this image, the raw BPR output had some incorrect lighting (I have increased the contrast so you can see the problem areas clearly). Since areas which are in shadow shouldn’t receive any light, I used the rim light shadow pass on a ‘darken’ layer to remove the incorrect lighting. The result is much more believable.

If you look carefully on the raw BPR output there are a few nice effects which were lost. On her shoulder under the shirt collar, for example, you can see that it looks like the shirt is passing some light through it. I could have added some of those effects back in (but I didn’t notice it at the time, so I didn’t…)

Fixing the BPR shadow:

When I was adding in the shadows cast by the key light, I noticed some unpleasant effects on her shoulder, boot, and hair (see circled). Note that I have put the shadow pass multiply layer on top of the key and (fixed) rim light diffuse layers, so that it is easy to see the problems.
I fixed this by using the rim light diffuse on a ‘lighten’ layer to lighten the shadows in the areas lit by the rim light. I had to adjust the levels to get it bright enough to produce the effect I wanted.

The end result is a more accurately lit base, and we just need to adjust the levels of the key diffuse and the rim diffuse as required.

[dillster]

That’s very nice work. The clothing folds and her facial expression in particular are excellent.

[teeg000]

Thanks Dillster, I appreciate it

[LVXIFER]

very very good work…maybe too much reflections and shines on the eyes at first look less blurred probably using maybe screen mode…but anyway amazing sculpt.

[teeg000]

Thanks a lot for the feedback LVXIFER.
Yeah, I painted on extra eye-shine in photoshop because I didn’t have time to experiment with appropriate reflectors/settings in ZB I wanted it to look like she had tears in her eyes…
Anyway, glad you like it!