thanks blueferret 
yes, i like the pieta piece for the same reason
here is my new work, it was a quite difficult project for me, as i usually do only “heads”… but, i challenged myself, and even though i do see things in the final render which could be better, i am happy i made it towards the end… modeled completely in zbrush, scene and materials created in blender, rendered with cycles… i hope you enjoy this one too
Hi Kokoro, What a wonderful study! I love everything about it … the slanted roof in the background is the perfect accoutrement! I would love to see more like this (more full body work) Bravo! All the best, David 
thank you, david… as to the full body work, we will see. i feel much closer to portraits, though i have to admit this was really interesting challenge 
Wonderful gargoyle !!! I love the whole composition. 
You seriously need to start involving with UVs-retopology and transferring of polypainting to blneder.
thanks michalis… well actually this gargoyle is well prepared to receive polypainting exture, as everything execpt the tail, is either modeled by subdivision method starting from a lowpoly basemesh (head), or was retopologized in an early stage from a dynamesh (body and wings), and then further subdivided for adding details., so, yes, i could now simply unfold it to uv, and try painting a texture…maybe i do
edit : whoops, i said not correct,the body started different, first a dynamesh, then zspheres on top of that, to get a decent lowpolycage… if you are interested, on my blog are stages to see
motivated by michalis (thanks for that , michalis ) i decided to create textures for the gargoyle, to make him look more real… it was my first time creating a texture for a model that has many subtools. so, what i did is paint a texture via polypainting for each of the subtools. i feel this is not the best way, as i had this way lots of big textures some of which were mainly black. how can i combine subtools in one texture, when each of the subtools has a different stage of subdivision level ?
again, rendered in cycles, tweaked the lightning a bit… hope you enjoy this one too
Hi Kokora
Luv this Gargoyle and the scene composition with the slate roof behind him…Great job…small_orange_diamond:)…Looks alot better with the weathered look, deeper shadows ect. it has in the last post…small_orange_diamond:)
Glenn
Crisper now.
The better topology the better the results.
Looking at your blog, on the chest area, low density of faces, so, some stretching is visible.
This is expected using z spheres as final topology.
On the face, the best (excellent) results. It’s separated form the body and unfortunately this is visible. Try to avoid it.
On the base, stretching once again.
These are answering your question somehow.
Having evenly divided “cages” as retopo meshes leads to equally subdivided meshes for polypaint and hi frequency sculpting.
Having the same number of subdivisions to all your subtools makes possible to merge them as one tool and still have multiresolution.
Have them in first sub level and do unwrapping. Resulting to one map.
But you may not need these, 4-5 separated maps are better in this case.
Apply a material with color map, displacements etc on the face for instance.
Apply the same material on all other meshes.
Select a mesh and click on this small num next to material’s name. This makes it individual. So the only you have to do is to import-replace the map. (see att)
Really nice work on the gargoyle sculpt and the render looks fantastic!
Like a real sculpture, could you tell us a little of the rendering?
Keep it going
Best regards,
hi glenn, yes i like the weathered look too, it makes the whole look more real than the superclean statue i did first. it was well worth the effort thanks for looking
thank you michalis for checking out my blog yes, michalis, you see all the points that bother me too … i learn from this for next time. if i do again a zsphere body, i would change the topology first (maybe just add and push around a few points in blender, and then back to zbrush for further modeling)… i was not aware that the big polygons in the beginning would cause problems when texturing. for the modeling it was kind of ok, as i not needed too much detail there… sculpting the head was easiest, because of the good basemesh i made …
ok, thanks for the info how to get one map for several subtools. it is nice to reduce the number of maps some. … and, yes, this is how i did in blender, make one material for the head, tweak it until i like it, and then duplicate it via that button, thanks anyway, as i am still need to learn so much in blender (its doing still tricks with me with the palettes…lol… i know this is some newbie problem)
hi kenny. yes, the gargoyle is exported to blender. there i made materials with the textures i had painted in zbrush, and set the scene with the slanted roof. i used cycles for rendering, not the internal blender renderer. well, the setup is very basic, camera is made like a real camera, with focal length, lens and aperture. light is only one plane emitting a slightly tinted light, placed over and in front of the gargoyle, and to the left of the camera. well, what else, rendered lots of passes, more than 600… that takes some time on my small machine, but i like to wait when i can look forward to a nice render … i hope this helps, if you have specific questions, please ask
this time i am back with a portrait again … model done in zbrush, hair done in zbrush, textures done partly in zbrush, partly in photoshop. exported all to blender, rendered in passes with cycles, and composed in photoshop… i hope you enjoy. constructive critique is welcome
I like the clothes on this figure a whole bunch , The sculpt is of course excellent my only thought is the shadows don’t feel quite right…Course thats probably my crossed eys… …Deke
Great progress! small_orange_diamond
thanks bas
nono, deke, no crossed eyes, i was faking shadows in the background, and i think this is what caught your attention … lesson learned, never fake shadows… thanks !
Nice works, nice renders. For the portrait look for a better skin shader 
Good sculpting
thanks kaiserkloud, yes skin is difficult and i need learn more about how create the materials. did some nicer tests today already
Good one!
You already noticed a strange cycles behavior on very thin fibers, yes?
We have to wait for SSS and hair-particles cycles support. Hair in blender is superior to zb after all. Have you tried it? BlenderInternal renderer is needed in this case.
Excellent clothes BTW.
hi michalis … yes, with the duke i had problem with thin hairs,but i am working already on a new portrait, and i have succeed to make cycles render thin hair it looks great !!! and, i have now much better skin, with a faked sss i will show when is finished, soon, and tell what i did … yes, the clothes, these were great fun glad you like them
ok, here is my new approach to hair and skin rendering in cycles.
model, hair and textures created in zbrush, then exported everything to blender. to get the thin hair render nice i did two things. first in zbrush, i used a high divide number on the length of the fibres, like 10. in blender i added a subdivision modifier and additionally pressed the “smooth” button in the t-panel (this makes my machine go into knees when rendering, but it works great). for the skin, to achieve a faked sss effect, i used a material with a texture for color, and the greyscale as bump, mixed it with glossyshader which received in its color end a slightly desaturated version of the texture, and mixed it with translucent shader which received in its color a brigthnend and more contrast version of the texture. then it was just finetuning the mix and saturation values…
the only thing that puzzles me, is that on my ipad the skin looks quite red, while on my mac, the skin looks nicely pale with a slight red from the fakes sss… would like to know how it looks on your monitors…
and, i am really happy how well zbrush and cycles works together so, i hope you enjoy this handsome young guy, who seems to be a little unsure whether he likes the fotosession or not 
Hey Kokoro,
The skin looks great on my windows laptop (about like you describe seeing on your mac). The model looks great too, kudos.
Thanks for explaining your process for rendering in cycles. The only other 3D program I use is Blender. Much appreciated.
Ezra.