That's it for now. I'll definitely keep this thread updated as I go. And please, feel free to critique heavily. I have very thick skin. And almost no neck.
Oh, I almost forgot to ask... is there a translucent material or some way I can make just one subtool translucent? Like with the mask on the woman, I had to fake that in Photoshop.
Man!
How did you get that effect of transparency?
i’d be interested to know that as well…
I really like your sculpts of the kid in the lion suit and the elephant!
the alien looks really cool too… like the texture…
Well you definitly made a great transition to 3d, looking forward to seeing more!
Oh hey. Nice work. DO I KNOW YOU FROM SOMEWHERE?
I just took two screen shots, one with the mask, and one without, and faded the mask image to 40% opasity. But what I want is a way to apply that effect in Zbrush.
I think I’ve seen you around town a time or two. You’re that Wyatt Earp fella, right?
have you tried the transform > transp feature?
Nice works! And, fun to read thread text too!
Transparency can be faked a little by fiddling with subtool tranparency and ghosting I think, but that is definitely one area ZBrush is lacking in my opinion. A little alpha blending would go a long way toward helping with things like eyelashes, hair, glasses, eye lenses, watch faces, surface discontinuities, and kool-aid man.
For right now, the typical method seems to be the multiple-render-and-composite strategy.
-oof
Are you talking about this?:
If so, then that doesn’t really do what I need since it seems to make all the unselected subtools ghosted. Since my tool has 15 subtools that won’t work unless I merged all the subtools except the mask, then selected the other tool and the mask would be ghosted. But that’s more work than just overlaying the photoshop layer. Plus, then I can’t continue to work with subtools.
Yup. Keeping my fingers crossed for that feature in 4.
how do people do EYES with the spec and transparency on the eye ball???
i’m thinking to make my turntable i’m going to just render a pass with ONLY my transparent objects (eyeballs, transparent wings) and make a render mask for my entire character
A little more work on the girl’s dress and shoes. Critiques appreciated. Especially proportions and wrinkles crits. Paintovers welcome!
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Hey. Calf is far too long, longer than the thigh currently. The angle of the foot, or the way it is planted to the ‘floor’ is also rather jarring from some angles.
Hey Scybe! A lot of cool work here! I’ll agree that the calf is too long. The trick I use is remembering that when I kick myself in the butt with my heal i can only reach around the bottom of my cheek. As for the drappery it is quite good, but maybe some different wrinkles for the calf area. Perhaps it’s just too busy there. Good stuff overall
Yep, sorry I didn’t get back to this thread to respond. You can actually use the transp feature for this. You select the subtool that you want to have be transparent, turn on transp, and then use the preference options in the image below to fake it. ( turn ghost off, turn front opacity all the way up, and back opacity controls the objects transparency) I wasn’t able to get the inactive subtools to not be dimmed, however, so it is possibly still not the way to go. Also, you can’t do a production render in zb.
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Thanks oofnish! That’s an interesting work around. But yeah, if everything gets dim it’s just easier to do the photoshop layer trick.
And thanks everyone else for the feedback on the calf. I CAN’T BELIEVE I DIDN’T NOTICE THAT!!! :lol: I guess I just got so caught up in the minutia of fabric folds that it slipped under the radar.
Heh… oh well. I guess I can just say it’s part of my plan to make my later work seem better.
Here’s some revisions. I’d love more feedback. Who knows, maybe her neck is twenty feet long. :rolleyes:
Here is the same character but for a different book in the trilogy when she is 12 and… getting attacked on a boat by a different alien. 
Crits please! Be harsh!
Right now I feel like her pose is a bit unnatural but I can’t put my finger on why. The boat is supposed to be tipping as the crab climbs on and the bottom of the boat is supposed to be filled with seaweed that she had harvested, so maybe once those elements are in it won’t seem so weird.
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really nice work so far. only thing i could crit about this pose is that her hands seem too close together on the oar (i would try her left hand at the very bottom of the handle), and the oar might be too upright at that point in her swing. im thinking typical samurai sword poses…at that point in the swing, the blade/oar tip would be more pointed at the ground (assuming she knows a little about smashing aliens with oars i guess:)).
also, if the boat is tipping at this exact moment, she is trying to keep her balance. maybe try bending her knees a bit more? im not sure what to say, in these situations i usually just try to get up and pose myself or imagine the situation and do some trial and error until it looks, or ‘feels’ right. i might even try one where she is jumping/falling forward…
From an animators standpoint, if the crab is tipping the boat forward tow things would happpen 1) the character would fall in the direction of the tipping boat or backwards depending on the speed of the disturbance or 2) the character would compensate for the lean and continue with their movements. If the character were falling the head and shoulders would lead the movement, generally. The reason the pose looks off is that the hips are back and the shoulders forward. Move the hips towards the crab and arch the back away from it. This will also make the swing look more porwerful. Imo.
On the other hand, you could move the arms and oar further into the strike and curl the torso more towards the crab. So you’d be taking a snapshot later in the swing. Don’t bend or twist the wrists either, firm wrists, the strike is all in the arms, which should be almost completely stright on impact and start to bend as they move the weapon through the subject, not relevant in this case. Hope that helps.
If you want to have a dynamical composition use diagonals and obliques lines to compose. This will give you the feel of movement. For more read Kandinsky book (Point and Line to Plane - basis of modern art of composition ) or anything about that. About the character, to look like she’s moving, the projection of center of gravity must be out of her standing base … like she’s falling. In that way she’ll be convincing that she’ll really hit the alien.
Any way beautiful characters and I hope this help. Good Luck !!!