it’s been ages since I last had a go at posting advice on Zbrush (last zscript I made was the first “human hand creation zscript” - you realise how much things have progressed since then)
to the point now. I usually see people on the forum modelling a good model, maybe texture it too, and then render it on a black background and call it a day.
with all due respect to each one’s personal aesthetics on colour, and knowing how useful it is to render on black (it hides many faults, and generally looks cool, especially to newbies), I have to speak my mind;
a black monochrome background only looks like a hole. it isn’t a background. it doesn’t look professional (except in very particular areas of illustration). usually when I create a foreground model (or painting, for that matter) that I like, I try to make it stand out using the background.
this background may be a plane3D placed right behind my scene, with a “flat color” material. I then paint on it using 2D or 2.5D brushes. remember, 2.5D brushes don’t work on the flat material. you have to at least have a fastshader material on your plane3D to Zadd to/Zsubstract from its surface. I prefer the background to start out in a non-black colour (gray or white work best) and try to fill the whole canvas with small brush strokes. that is, I don’t just leave it one-coloured. using a non-black background allows you to see the areas you haven’t yet filled.
the same applies when you want to achieve a black background. start with white! and then remember how you used to fill white papers with black markers when you were kids. slowly, and with non-continuous strokes. you can try painting black in a radial or diagonal motion, or in crosshatches. the results are much more lively and painterly than what I call “the uniform Zbrush black background ™”.
exercise in the technique. you’ll see that no matter how cool you thought your model on black was at first, a proper background totally transforms it into a professional-looking piece. or at least, it shows you tried, it shows you experimented, it shows you didn’t give up, you didn’t just do what everyone else does -namely, modelling something and letting go.
zbrush is chock-full of capabilities. the new version is expected to bring new ones into play. and frankly, if you don’t try to make a real composition in Zbrush, you’ll never be motivated enough to use all its capabilities.
here’s a badge I made for my favourite arachnid, Spiderman. note that I liked the simple sphere3D model on (1)(textured with texturemaster)
however, I wanted to pursue something better. on (4) is the stage where I felt more confident that my painting was done.
notice that on (2) I put a dark red plane3D behind the spider-mask. using 2D and 2.5D brushes, I managed to give my plane3D a textile-like quality. also note that I don’t use “colorenhancer” and “highliter” because these brushes don’t have a clue what hue I’m trying to get. If I want a lighter blue, I pick it up myself from the colour tab.
hope these were at least a little bit helpful. I hope I will see fewer “black-background” works from now on.
oh, and here’s the material I used for spidey’s mask.
kisses
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> any art that induces emotion, whether positive or negative, is useful art <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
