@ Rouncer and Sanketpro3d:
Thankyou guys very much! the details are sort of the easy part in one way and its keeping from going overboard that is the problem, I get so into them I forget what Im doing… and what the whole thing looks like… hence the clutter at times…
Your and others encouragement is a wonderful thing and the lot of you are very fun and interesting and inspiring.
Thanks!
Mealea
I have been reading about and watching tutorials about spotlight for a while now and have gotten almost no where with them until today, all I needed to know was in one simple video that showed me how to draw onto an object, that was it, lots and lots of wasted time cause i guess I was looking at the wrong stuff… Its funny because today I also got the hang of ShadowBox as well, I wont say even for a second that I am any good at either of these two tools but now that I understand them they are FAR more exciting.
I have to thank a few people for this:
The ShadowBox inspiration was supplied by Bio Designer in this thread which I find stunning:
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?p=845207&posted=1#post845207
And this video:
http://youtu.be/6JhBsp1tGGU
It is so simple and so clear if you watch what he clicks on you are good to go and all the other videos start becoming much more useful, I wonder sometimes if giving background after the “instant gratification” part is not a better way of teaching… GRIN! It works for me anyway.
so…
While I haven’t made anything much with ShadowBox and I still suck at Spotlight I did do one of the things I like to do most, make something fuzzy.
This is just a Spotlight painted sphere and to me its a big jump forward as I have had a lot of trouble with textureing and understanding how and why things are done the way they are. I am one ignorant broad mostly… but that is at last beginning to change; thanks to the lot of you and this amazing website you have all created.
Now I’m learning to make matcaps, hard edges and totally failing at retopo, failing as in I suck at it so badly I might as well not do it, I will keep practicing, and to everyone who offered tutorials THANK YOU! I know how to do it, I just need a LOT of practice… Also I learned to do relief stuff like coins and whatnot and a number of other things.
Matcaps however are great fun as are hard edges and both are in some ways very easy and especially the edge thing complicated. Also I got the hang of Shadowbox the other day and I’m seriously thrilled, its neat, I have a lot to learn with that too.
This past week I have had my face crammed into ZBrush about 18 hours a day and while I feel loopy and a bit stupid I learned a lot… what to do with what I learned is another problem that I will get to later.
so the skin on this is my very first matcap, I wanted something like a creamcicle; if anyone knows what that is they should be able to see I got it kind of.
Oh yah, this is what caused me to make this image, I think its amazing:
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?p=847267#post847267
Cheers!
Mealea
I like your 2.5D images. especially the three white-ish ones on this page. and the fuzzy “dragonball” is also nice! keep em coming 
@ Hendrik:
Thank you! I have a LOT of fun with 2.5D and just cause you mentioned it and I had some time today, I made another one, this one even has a skull in it something people here seem to like a lot (GRIN!!!).
I learned some new stuff today (after doing this) that should make these more interesting and if I’m right have FAR more depth, something I have been trying to get in 2.5D with limited success…
Cheers!
Mealea
I really like the fuzzy dragon ball, and the creamcicle matcap looks good enough to eat. 
I’m so jealous though. I wish I could spend 18 hours a day with ZBrush. I’m lucky if I can find time to get in 18 hours a month. 
Love the white “sea bottom” looking renderings MealeaYing:D
@ Cad64: Dont be jealous, I’m completely obsessed with this program, and anything I can plug into it, more on that later, but thank you very much! and the creamecicle thing is driving me nuts, they are unavailable here but I can taste them when I think of them!
@ Cw06: Those are a lot of fun for some reason, there is something very satisfying about that color and how it renders and Thank you!
By the way, your thread and the wild assortment of people and creatures you make is very inspiring, today i saw your fish and I laughed so hard I shot coffee out my nose. That fish is perfect. (I will comment in your thread as soon as the storm that is about to hit here has passed, its looking a wee bit nasty.
Cheers and thanks to you both!
Mealea
Sculptris, GoZ into Zbrush and one simple alpha, then I used Marcus Civis’s seamless texture plug in to finish it into a repeating pattern, way less than an hour of work… this was inspired by this video:
And the lot of you here at ZBC, I know you like monsters and this one is an easy target:
Lil Cthulhu:lol:
Being on a boat in a storm. It’s no wonder why you created your latest work.
Watch out for Lil Cthulhu MealeaYing:D
And thanks for the kind words:)
Where can I get this plugin “Marcus Civis’s seamless texture plug in”
Regards Ziggy
You are developeing a nice technique here,… and style…
A lot of depth in this last one posted…Best one yet I think…
@ CW06:
Hehehehe!!! That video had me laughing so hard it hurt, there are a couple of others that are out of control in the same way, turning something vast timeless and evil into something you want to hug is a hilarious twist and for some odd reason the internet seems rather adept at this. That and Cthulhu is in the public domain now!
@ Sigmund Hentze (And everyone else interested):
The seamless texture creation plug in Marcus made is here:
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showpost.php?p=848052&postcount=37
Its as close to perfect as anything I have ever used.
@ Spirit Dreamer:
Thank you! depth in 2.5D is both immediate and sort of oddly elusive. Somehow while I can get depth I don’t seem to get distance, and I find that odd, its like instead of casting shadows everything has its own drop shadow… and now that I have said that I know what the problem is! (I think).
ok now this is a little off for me I think but it came out sort of cool so heres another version of that last thing sort of…
This is another one of those weird things that happens when you screw with Zbrush.
I dont know what Im doing but Im doing it anyway.
And you’re doing amazing pieces of art.
How did you do that? :lol:
It looks like your sculpture exploded. But it’s pretty though, with all of its blood and guts flying everywhere.
@ Michalis:
Thank you very much! You helped a LOT with my learning this stuff.
@ Cad64:
That is a hard one to answer, I made a few thing first, namely matcaps… well… I guess a step by step is in order for this question, and some credit is due also to someone else.
Hang on… I gotta find his post…
RUMMAGE CRASH THUD SHUFFLE… Ouch crap… AHHA!
Its from Kilik128, Thanks Kilik!!!
Here it is:
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showpost.php?p=856026&postcount=92
Ok. What I did was read that and not understand the first part much so I messed about with the deco brush in 2.5D and did things like this:
Having said all that here is another using the same stuff but this one is a repeating texture I’m working on, its still got a few holes and it dosent flow as a texture yet but that will come with time, I just figured this out this morning. (by the way, I shoved all its guts back in and gave it a bandaid so its all happy and content now!)
wow, love the last one. really cool. for a second there I thought I was looking at one of Monet’s lily paintings… keep them coming, they are getting better and better! you don’t really see many 2.5D pictures here. I suck at it as well 
I just started with 2.5D before I knew how to really operate ZBrush. It was a lot of fun, but I guess I got frustrated to quickly, cause I didn’t know what was going on… then I just picked up 3D sculpting and have been doing that since…
@ Hendrik:
That very funny! I did almost the exact opposite, I started off sculpting and got infatuated with 2.5D, I love it its VERY odd amazing and fun all at the same time. Thank you for the compliment, the idea of something I did even vaguely resembling an actual artist is rather thrilling! One other thing, I don’t think its possible to suck at 2.5D its sort of self correcting and seems to keep expanding as you go!
Cheers!
Mealea
@ Cad64:
I forgot something absurdly silly and strangely important, you need to use the jellybean texture, for some reason that makes a huge difference!
I know… they are yummy and I want some… but seriously, thsat is a big part of it color wise.
