kontur's workbench

[kontur]

Hi all here at zBrushCentral!

My Name is Johannes Neumeier, ‘kontur’ on the web. I am a german student currently enrolled in a Digital Arts Degree Programme at the Univercity of Applied Sciences in Turku, Finland.
While I have been digitally creating everything from poster to website and flash game over the past years I am fairly new to 3D. I so far learned a bit of 3DSMax, and have now started trying to learn a bit of zBrush on my own.

After having lurked around here for the past two weeks or so that I have now been playing around with zBrush and using these forums as the great resource that they are, I am finally able to post some of my beginner works (I mean those, that did not end up in undefinable alien-blobs :D).

All of those sculpts were a great learning process so far, as it is, but I am more than glad for any comments you can give me, so I can learn more from mistakes and get better.

First more complex sculpt, some sort of alien-blob (alright, this one got in :D). I noticed, however, that the mesh is messed up on the fingers - found out over the forums, that you should not add too many zspheres to one single zshpere.

I’ll post more as I learn more and produce new models.

Again, any comments and critiques very welcome.

Cheers,
k.

Attachments

[kontur]

Hi all,

here some more sculpts.

With this one I was trying an idea/concept and also familiarizing myself a bit with subtools - really handy stuff, but I made the mistake of merging the candles without setting them all to the same SDivision level.
[]

Also, I posted a few days ago already in the support forums about a problem I had with retopologizing the tall, muscular fella, from up in my first post. If you would want to help a beginner and know a bit about topology, any help appreciated. ( Link to the thread )

Other than that, I am happy to hear your comments and critiques, or just a hello would be nice, too

Cheers,
k.

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[kontur]

Finally got the retopology to work on the giant’s model!
Went and defined his face a bit more, however still at subdiv 6.
[](javascript:zb_insimg(‘107427’,‘face3.jpg’,1,0))

Did a bit of pen and paper designing of cloths and a staff for him, too. Plus some sketches to give him a nice wolf pet. But for now, I am still struggling to get the basics straight.

Attachments

[kontur]

Three views on a new sculpt. Plan to use it as a belt buckle for the tall guy from my first posting (2nd image).
Also gave him a bear leather to wear, but still working on more cloths for him.

Comments and critiques would be very appreciated

Cheers,
k.

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[kontur]

Another skulpting and polypaint exercise I worked on these days. Tried working with loads of details + polypaint to give it a nice texture. Naturally, some more layered skin in an external app would be ideal.

Really looking forward to some constructive criticism, but random comments are fine, too.

Cheers,
k.

[kursadk]

Kontur,

You have good ideas. However you are lacking the right kind of training and discipline. First of all you should start studying drawing and anatomy right away. This kind of knowledge can be gained easily by everyone, the only rule is studying very hard. Once you are more comfortable with technical side of things, you will be able to realize your ideas under better light. I personally wont critique your current work because even the abstractions are lacking some proportion at the moment, but that is due to untrained mind and eye. Once you train yourself better technically, you will have no barrier that will stop you from creating the expressive work you want to create.

[kontur]

Hey there kursadk, thanks a lot for your reply.

I think you have justified reason to say that I have still got to learn in terms of anatomy and physiology. Having drawn and digitally created, I feel that I am somewhat familiar with those things, but on the other hand, I myself noticed I need better foundations still; both, in zBrush and also for creating 2D concepts.
I am trying to challenge myself in these areas, by exercising from anatomy books and also by participating in a weekly drawing session with model.

I also feel, that although these might still cause me trouble, I want to learn zBrush and how to depict what I imagine in zBrush. An approach of learning anatomy in the back chamber and then coming out when I think I would be perfect on that, would hardly work in my view.

Also I do want to stress that I would appreciate comments also on whatever I have done so far as to get a discussion on what are points that others think I should improve on. And are these similar to what I myself think I should focus on more?
In all of the above sculpts I have learned some feature of zBrush new to me before, so also that is a valuable progress of its own to me.

Again, feel free to comment more in concrete, or come back in the future and comment on newer stuff as I post - honest critique is surely appreciated.

Cheers,
k.

[kursadk]

Kontur, I think that best thing is not to be ambitious and to set your goals more real. The most important thing is being consistent. Some may not like what I would be saying here, but everyone can model. Infact modelling itself is very technical and driven by knowledge. Especially nowadays tools and resources are so great that learning time has dropped down alot. There is no merit in modelling something or anything unless one puts his/her soul into their creation.

So do not loose your passion for it and let your failures be your teacher. At the same time studying art history, sketching, watching good movies can help out training your eye .