This is my third attempt at sculpting Tom’s rat nest hairdo. So far I’m pretty happy with how it’s turning out. Feedback appreciated as always.
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Dr. Waits, I love “coffee and cigarettes” :lol:
Frank’s wild years really did nothing for his hair… good luck with that! 
Great start, look forward to seeing it develop
WARNING: The following is both explicit and badly drawn. You’ve been warned.
I was cleaning my garage the other day and I came across some drawings from when I was in high school. Thought it might be fun to share. Now, before you start in on me about how crass these are, bear a few things in mind. I was an angsty 15 year old, all I used back then was cheap ballpoint pens and the occasional Sharpie, and I’ve been listening to death metal since I was 12. When other kids had posters of Cindy Crawford and sports legends on their walls, I had Freddy Krueger, Dracula, and Pin Head.
If you’re in high school now, this should be a good confidence booster, since you’re probably way better then I was back then 
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Some of these are pretty rad dude! I can relate to being the kid listening to metal and sketching morbid dark thoughts hahah :lol:
Its refreshing to see sketches like these. It also makes me realize how much I need to pick up a pencil or pen and just sketch.
I really enjoyed looking at these, thanks for sharing.
I guess the difference from kids back then, and kids today, is that kids back then used to only fantasize about committing violent acts. Today, kids prefer to act on their crazy fantasies. Well, at least, according to the latest statistics, and the nightly news. 
Yeah, it’s good, that’s the sign that America is braking apart, and it is about time.
I’m not very competitive in nature, but I can tell you that seeing work from other artists such as yourselves gives me something to aspire to. San Diego doesn’t have much of a digital art community, so without you guys I would feel pretty cut off. I’m very appreciative of places like ZBC. No system is perfect though.
Anyway, sorry I haven’t updated in a while. I’ve had to take a few steps back so I could take a step forward, so to speak. I keep hitting technical walls in Max because I’m learning more about mental ray and Max’s Hair and Fur system in an attempt to be able to present my work in a professional manor. I still haven’t nailed it all down yet. It’s frustrating because I need to get my reel out soon, and I keep getting held up by stuff like that.
The hair on his scalp is sculpted. I decided that spending hours painstakingly tweaking hair guide splines wasn’t the best use of my time when I could more quickly interpret his messy hair as a conceptual sculpt.
The eyebrows and the “flavor saver” below his lip were made using Max’s Hair & Fur…which is currently the bane of my existence.
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Coming along nicely. Thanks for the link to the eyelash tut, I bookmarked it because im sure it will come in handy.
My main issue was actually getting the color and shader to work with me in my renders. They always seem to be too bright or too glossy no matter how much I tweak it. I have a great tut on max hair and fur bookmarked on my home PC. Ill send it to you when I get home, its got a lot of helpful tips for quickly getting your splines generally placed.
Wow that last image I posted looks really dark on my TV. Looks fine on my laptop though.
From what I’ve seen, Hair&Fur lends itself well to very short hair and the types of long hair that can be laid out in “sheets” - long straight hair, long wavy hair, even an afro…they all have a kind of consistency to them. Tom’s hair is really chaotic and I felt that styling it with loose curls and getting the proper density was just going to be too much of a pain.
Zap’s article on hair is the most cohesive explanation of it that I’ve found.
Tomala also has some really good info on H&F in his sketchbook.
Some great work Dustin.
Trust me when I say, You will Love Hair-Farm when it is released. It’s still in beta testing stage. It will solve any previous problems you may have had with creating hair, making it fun to do!
Check out the site. It blows H&F out of existance!
Cyber Radiance, Hair-Farm
Yeah I’ve been on the mailing list for Hair-Farm for a few weeks, but I haven’t received any news. I would join the beta program, but it’s being released in two days, so I don’t see much point. I haven’t seen any pricing information on the website yet. Also, I would love to see you guys put together some tutorial videos (with audio) on how to use Hair-Farm; and I don’t mean hair on a teapot or a sphere…that’s too Mickey Mouse
Show an example of how to apply hair to a human face and scalp that’s using a displacement map out of ZBrush, since that’s a common thing now.
Show that Hair-Farm is compatible with the Fast Skin+Displace (mi) shader, since Max’s Hair&Fur is not.
Show how to get nice cast shadows from the hair onto the face using mental ray and photometric lights.
Show how to render a hair+hair shadow pass for a turntable animation in case someone needs to comp the hair in post.
That’s my two cents.
Wow that’s a big ask! You dont want much do ya! 
I cant personally show anything here as I am under NDA. I would recommend either try to get on the beta team or wait for release.
I’m glad you have heard of it already.
This is easy and part of the workflow. No problem.
I’m afraid there arent any quick hair render solutions out there that are really compatible with GI rendering. You can do it with Hair-Farm but it is slow. Perhaps when Nvidia’s tesla computing power is main stream this may become a reality.
Show how to get nice cast shadows from the hair onto the face using mental ray and photometric lights.
Again, like any Hair-Plugin it comes down to speed and practicality. You can achieve just as good results with hair-Farms own custom light shadows or you can wait for full raytraced shadows but this takes time.
Show how to render a hair+hair shadow pass for a turntable animation in case someone needs to comp the hair in post.
That is dead easy. You will see.
All I’m saying is, show people how to use the plug-in in the ways that you would expect them to WANT to use it. Think your way through a typical pipeline, take note of the potential problems that may arise, and address them head-on in tutorials. Dispell myths and spoon feed the solutions to people.
It’s not inconceivable that people will want to use Hair-Farm in conjunction with the Fast Skin + Displace (mi) shader…which incidentally has nothing to do with GI. That’s the sort of thing I would need to know before I could justify buying a third-party hair plug-in. I need to know that your hair solution doesn’t suffer the same issues that Max’s native hair does. Right?
What’s good for your customers is good for you, because the sooner folks start posting professional-looking work online that utilizes your product, the sooner others are going to take notice and buy your product.
Hi! I’m also a beta tester like Lee on Hairfarm, and it’s amazing ! Hair and fur compared to Hairfamr is miles away from the target.
I do character, so I use the fast sss with hairfarm, go to the gallery and take a look at the akuma , I composed the fast skin with hairfarm, really easy to do.
And it doesn’t suffer the same issues that Max’s native hair does
Hairfamr is fast, have a perfect antialiasing, hyper real shaders and on top of it, really funny to use What was a nightmare to do (hairs) it’s now a funny task, I can’t stop doing it when I begin and I’m not kidding. It give you a predictable result, and I love it.
http://www.cyberradiance.com/hairfarm/gallery.php
or here for a bigger version : http://www.3dvf.com/forum/3dvf/WorkInProgress/3D/portrait-sujet_2016_4.htm
there will be more work soon
Some absolutely awesome work here Dustin, your tech knowledge is a faraway dream for me! Great to see my old mate Tom getting a look in, don’t know why I haven’t seen him done before, he has such an expressive face (and an even better voice!).
Keep it up mate! 
Thanks man. I actually haven’t posted here in a while because ZBC was becoming a bit of a distraction for me, and I’ve been working hard to finish some past projects and get a show reel made. I’ve had a bad habit in the past of leaving things half finished and I’m making a conscious effort to change that about myself. I quickly pop on here once ever day or two, but I don’t allow myself to lurk like I used to
i love your sketchbook
Long time no post. Been busy on the reel. Decided to take another crack at detailing this guy. Still some areas to fill in, like the head, and cleanup to do. I’ll just come right out and admit that I referenced Stefanuto’s TRex quite a bit when I was uncertain about what kind of pattern flow would be appropriate in a particular area. I have a good feel for it now, so I’m confident I could go freestyle next time.
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oooooooh myyyyy… :eek:
Those are some crispy scales! Amazing detailing Dustin. Looks like hours of tediousness! haha. :lol: Hope all is well man. Take it easy.