Zbrush first timer here. The sculpt is based on Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns vision of Batman. An older, grimmer study of the character.
Please feel free to leave c&c. Tell me what I’m doing wrong and (hopefully) what I’m doing right.
Jutsu, thanks for the tips. They are most appreciated. Having said that, let me explain my thinking on some of the problems you found.
I agree that the jaws are way wider than they would be on a real human but I’m not going for ultimate realism here. I’m trying to match the artwork in TDKR. I’ll attach a thumbnail of the reference I’m using for the sculpt.
I also agree with your comment about the eyes not being modeled, but traditionally (in the comics) you never see Batman’s eyes. The Bat’s eyes never showed up until the movie serials of the 40’s, and that continues to this day in the movies. As I said, I’m going the comic-book version of the Bat, and not the movie version.
You’re absolutely right about posting multiple angels, but at the time I posted I didn’t have the time to upload multiple pics and I haven’t figured out how you folks do those multi-angle single pictures yet. (hint, hint :p)
There is a very slight ridge showing the delineation between the cowl and his cheeks/chin, but I probably do need to enhance that some more. And now that I look a little closer, that edge kind of peters out as it goes down to the chin, so yeah, I need to work on that some more.
Again, thank you so much for your comments Jutsu. They’re helping me rethink my approach to this thing.
[QUOTE=Jutsu;908786
Multi-angle images are just single images of different angle stuck together in Photoshop or any type of image editor, but mainly photoshop.[/QUOTE]
LMAO! Why did I never think of that? I was thinking there must be a feature in Zbrush itself that I was overlooking.
/hangs head in computer graphics geek shame
Hopefully I’ve made a little progress. I’m partially colorblind, so please let me know if the skin tones are off. And I know the paint job is a little sloppy but this is nowhere near finished. This is the first time I’ve messed around with painting in Zbrush at all.
I’ve spent the last couple of weeks devouring every Zbrush tutorial I can find, so I’m begging for c&c. Please help me learn what I’m doing wrong.
I’m changing between projects faster than Courtney Love changes rehab centers.
Devouring tutorials at a rapid pace when I can find them and learning new things every day. Hope you guys like it.
Hmm… The thumbnail cropper isn’t working for me.
Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you… the one… the only… the incomperable… the really, really badactor… Tor Johnson!
Still a wip, especially around the mouth and eyes but I so enjoy hearing criticism I posted this early preview. Enjoy!
Your pardons, please. I forgot to upload an actual photo of the man, considering how few people have actually seen any of his movies.
Meet Marv. Yet another wip. I’m now officially begging for c&c. This is based on the Sin City character by the way.
I can definitely see what you’re going for.
I find that when starting off with zbrush and digital sculpting
It’s best not to go for super detail right away.
sculpting the pores and wrinkles of a character are really accents.
Trying working on building form. Study face muscles and proportions.
using brushes the like the clay buildup brush etc.
A really good way to learn is to watch other peoples workflows
See how they buildup the character and how they use subtools etc.
A great place to look would be the the sony santa monica thread
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?141514-Sony-Santa-Monica-Lunchcrunch-Characters
They post time lapses of pretty much everything on there.
You have a great start keep working at it
Crevasse: thank you for your comments. I know exactly what you mean about jumping in to the fine details before getting the basics down. My Tor Johnson is kind of a mess because of my impatience, but in a (probably vain) attempt to defend myself, Marv really is supposed to look that way:D. You know… Comic book character… Features really distorted as opposed to a normal human…Here’s the reference I used. 
I don’t think my proportions are that far off, but I’m biased lol.
Anyway, I’m a guy that likes to get really good at one thing before moving on to other things. So I’m doing one bust after another because to me the “face” of a character will catch interest before anything else.
Having said that, I’m now attempting to copy some of the work of the old masters. Figure I might as well learn from the best:rolleyes:.
Here’s my latest wip and reference.
Reference.
Hi VoodooDad 
Just stopping by to say…enjoy your sketchbook, and i’m enjoying it …Great start…
small_orange_diamond:)
Funny,…I recognized that Tor Joshson piece of yours right off the bat, before seeing the refference…Had’nt thought about him in ages…He was a great childhood memory for me in those old B movies that were so great when I was a kid…many many moons ago…LOL…Good seeing him again…
Your Sin City character came out pretty good I think…could be refined futher, but hey, it’s a good start, and that’s what counts…Better to refine something that is solid in the beginning than to try to refine something that is not.
On your Master study…You can’t go wrong studying them……Keep refineing areas like the roundness of the face in general.the broadness of his jaw muscle in relation to his chin…The hard edge of his upper lip in relation to the soft edge of his lower lip…The wideness of his nose around the nostal area, and the actual shape of his nostals, which are a key element to his expressed emotion…Flared Nostrals…/…Realy consentrate on what’s actually happening in the eyes, concerning the lower eyelids and upper eyelids and their relationship to each other, the angles that give a sense of receeding inward and coming out and forward…More hair also…All of those little details in form and volume,… and the close study of them while you do your studying will really pay off, when doing studies of the Masters Works…
Anyway,…I’m looking forward to seeing where this journy leads you to…ZBRUSH is a Great tool to learn with and from…Makes both a real pleasure, and the journy an adventure…Keep up the great progress…small_orange_diamond:)
Glenn
Spiritdreamer: Thank you so much for your reply. I don’t want to offend any of the few who have posted here, but I’m truly thrilled to receive a helpful response from an artist whose work I admire as much as I do yours!
Okay, now that I’ve gotten through my bit of gratuitous sucking up, I can begin to address your very welcome tips.
Tor was pretty easy actually. Pretty much a symmetrical blob of clay on the screen with a nose, mouth and eyes and it couldn’t help but have at least a passing resemblance to him.
Marv is a major favorite of mine, but I’m not entirely satisfied with everything there. His various scars and wrinkles came out a bit too unnatural looking for what I wanted, and his head is too long and narrow overall. I did a render of him in the wet clay mat, and I thought he looked a lot better, but still not quite what I wanted. But I’ll continue working on him and post shots of any progress made.
David… What can I say about David without making it sound like I’m making excuses for not correcting things that looked wrong even as I was doing them… Heh, I had his jawline worked out with the roundness you suggested, but I swear to god he came out looking exactly like Jay Leno! I even briefly considered posting a shot of that and saying it was Leno, but I wanted to do something that resembled art and not a fanboy sculpt for a change.:lol: His eyes are too small, too. To me, his eyes always reminded me of Elijah Woods’, but I just couldn’t get them to look good going any bigger than I did.
Anyway, my wife gave me Zbrush Character Creation as an early Christmas present yesterday and even though I’m only a couple of chapters in I’ve already learned at least fifty things that I didn’t know before. So keep on the lookout here, I’ll be posting again soon.
Quick 'n dirty sculpt of the Joker. Wanted to experiment with lighting in Zbrush.
I like it but one thing though, I just found out that matcaps and the Zbrush lighting systems aren’t on speaking terms. Is there a good place to download standard mats the do work well with a light setup?
Now with 100% more lightcap goodness! I’ve really got to start discovering these things faster…
Left side done with lightcaps, right side with standard Zbrush lighting. The only other difference is the background is turned off for the lightcap render.
I am going to marry lightcaps and bare its children!
Tor again, looking sooo much closer to the “real” thing.
“Time for to go to bed!” ~ Tor Johnson
A few more tweaks to the face and added a simple curved plane to serve as the shoulders. Next, I need to figure out how to wrap the chains around his neck and shoulders.
I’m really enjoying this one.
One question for my loyal followers:rolleyes:. When I use lightcaps, my material seems to pick up a distinct “shininess” that I don’t want. In this case it’s Matcap White Cavity. I’ve fiddled with every setting I can think of, but just can’t seem to flatten it out. I would really appreciate some tips here.
