Hi there! it’s me, Rob Zepeda.
In this entry I’ll show you some of the process of creation for the boots and cape.
Here are my main references.
Boots
I tried a different approach with this pieces by not starting them from scratch. Years ago I used and had some fun with DAZ 3D so I went to the main page looking if I could buy a pair of boots that aligned to the design I want for Lady Death’s clothing.
I did find a pair of boots with a lot of potential, so I bought them.
It was very important for me to consider two things by deciding to use items I didn’t model myself from the beggining.
1.-My figure is not in a T or A pose what allows me the use of symmetry, the legs have movement and a defined pose so I had to replicate that pose as close as I could to get the boots adapt to the model.
As a former DAZ user I loaded a Genesis 8 figure and posed her trying to emulate my Zbrush figure, then applied the boots. This is when point number 2 appears.
2.-Any DAZ user knows that those figures and assets are not perfect, they are a great starting point for saving some time but it’s mandatory to make adjustments. Unfortunately the geometry sometimes is streched or deformed in a way that doesn’t make sense. A clear example can be seen in the buckles and the holes for the laces (circled in green at the image).
Back in Zbrush I imported the boots and eliminated the straps. Obviously the dimensions and position of the posed boots weren’t the same as my figure’s legs, so a lot careful tweaking was necessary in order to match them with my character.
From the beggining my idea with the boots was that they were complemented with leather panels, as if they were part of a leather armor set.
In general terms I want to reinforce the concept of Lady Death as a supernatural being, she is a kind of queen from hell. For that reason I decided to add hooves to the boots, I think they add a bit of a badass demonic touch.
The hooves were sketched first in Zbrush and later modeled in Blender, I wanted clean topology and more controllable forms.
The leather panels were created by masking, extracting and zremeshing, for the borders I used a simple Imm curve brush.
To give some extra wrinkles to the boots I sculpted with the ClayBuildup brush, an Imm curve brush was used to add straps and buckles and finaly the small metal rings were created with an Imm Primitive brush. Also lots of adjustments were necessary to get decent non distortioned (stretched) laces.
Cape
The cape had to show movement and add some grace to the composition, I used Marvelous Designer in order to have wind blowing at it. I’ve never used dynamics for clothing inside Zbrush so I’m not sure if you can get this effect.
The topology I’ve got from Marvelous Designer wasn’t very good so I Zremeshed the cape and used the Move brush to modify some areas. Smooth and Claybuild up brushes allowed me to refine some folds and wrinkles to have a more pleasent look.
I can’t forget that this figure is going to be printed in my Phrozen Sonic Mini 8ks. This printer has a maximum z print size of 17 cms so I had to cut the cape in two pieces.
As I’m an absolute rookie to 3D printing I asked in the Discord group “ArtLegion” how could I make this pieces printable and I got some help.
The thickness at the center of the cape should be heavier in order to add a key that penetrates the other half, this not only allows to have a connection between both parts but also gives more printable material to the printer.
An important thing to consider is that I didn’t want to have a super thick cape, this would look bizarre because the cape, in my mind, would be composed of leather pieces, and leather is not super thick. To adress this, only the thickness at the center is heavier than the boarders, this method allows me to hide the heaviest thickness in a less visible area.
Finally I added some seams and stitches to give the impression that this cape is not a single piece. The idea is that the person that made the cape had to join several pieces of leather, in my mind it has a similar look of Catwoman’s suit in the film Batman Returns.
That’s it for this post.
I’m very greatful that you read this much and I hope you’re enjoying this sculpural journey.
May zbrush be with you