ZBrushCentral

Oh NO, another head!

ZBrush Artworks
#1

My second image post here, and it is… a HEAD!

Not very original, but I had much fun making it. Would never have believed that I would sculpt a head one day, Zbrush rocks! :cool: I made use of the ‘picassoskin’ material and light, made a start on a texture and this is how it is so far.
I would love the c&c to know how I can further improve this model. The shape of the back of the head isn’t quite right I think. Also I would like to make tiny details like wrinkles and thode little stripes on the lips and stuff. Tried that a bit, but allthough my model has around 2.000.000 poly’s, that seems to be not enough when I use the STD-brush and an alpha. Can I make a bumpmap that renders in Zbrush or are there other techniques?

[Headattempt.jpg](javascript:zb_insimg(‘33507’,‘Headattempt.jpg’,1,0))

#2

Hi there Plakkie!

We should form a newbee group :laughing:
Ok, about the head it depends at what your aiming for? Do you want to do a realistic head or a cartoony head?
Either one, it really helps to have images, photos, a mirror,etc as references.
First of all I would recomend you understand how a real head looks like, that way if you make a realistic head you know where the basic shape comes from and how to reproduce it. If you make a cartoony head, you’ll have the freedom of “knowelege” to deform it.

Then go in the details -wrinkles, color, etc- :wink:

Keep on learning… there’s a lot to learn in ZB -I’m at the very beginning-

Take care :+1:

#3

Hi Plakkie :smiley:

It’s looking good Plakkie and I love those ears!!!.

Try pulling the back of the head out with a large Move brush that should help to give him a more realistic look.
I hope he didn’t mind me saying that as he looks a bit of an angry guy with the frown…:smiley:

I still haven’t learnt about texturing yet so can’t really help you there…perhaps one of the more knowledgeable people here can help you out

Having fun makes it all worthwhile :+1:

Dreamreef

#4

Thanks elarcano, I would enjoy a newbee club… maybe we could design our own newbee T-Shirt! :lol:
As for the headmodel, I’m not good enough yet to aim at anything, I just wanted to make A Head, no matter what kind :D. Just trying if I could get some of the shapes right (like the ear) and learning all the marvelous techniques you find on ZCentral. I tried a bit of detailing techniques for wrinkles and stuff as you can see in the new image.
But you’re right, when I’m going to make a GOOD head, I first need to understand basic shapes, polyflow, and study pictures and my own head. I allready a book on anatomy for artists, and it allready helped me much on the ear area. I’m still looking for a site that has good pictures of ppl’s faces to study skin texture and detail though… know any?

Am really enjoying your VSWIP thread, unlike me, you have a more structured approach, and I’m learning a lot from the gradual progress!

Cheers!

[attach=33670]Hoofdpoging2.jpg[/attach]

[attach=33671]oor2.jpg[/attach]

Attachments

Hoofdpoging2.jpg

oor2.jpg

#5
> [color=#d0d0d0]Am really enjoying your VSWIP thread, unlike me, you have a more structured approach, and I'm learning a lot from the gradual progress! Wow! Your comment alone has made the thread worthwhile in the sharing aspect :+1: ... oh! You weren't talking about my humor :roll_eyes: That's also a good thing to do, just play around to get used to the program -lots of fun that way- but sooner or later you'll have to read lots of stuff so you can get the hang of it. Theory and practices or practices and theory ;)

Newbee t-shirts! hahaha It could have printed the words: Zbrush Newbee… Please don’t run away!
We would be the unpopular ones hahaha

Another way to get references images is to go to google and type something like ears or anatomy of the headand click the images button at the top… you can find lots of things… even more that you think -quoting Frenchy Pilou-

“See ya” :wink:

#6

How about: “Zbrush Newbee… Look at my lumpy monster”
or… “Zbrush Newbee… Why can’t I go back to edit mode?”

Yes, you can get good images for anatomy but I’m looking more for faces of ppl. Skin, wrinkles, expressions, young faces, old faces, ugly faces, nice faces, hairy faces, bold faces; nicely lit front and side views, that sort of stuff. Maybe I should post a thread asking everyone to make a picture of their faces? :laughing:
I will try the structured approach in a few months, when I have a nice design from my drawing friend (totally can’t draw myself alas :cry:) to work on. Will be fun, and just like with you’re thread, we newbees can learn so much from it. :+1:

#7

Having found some more reference material I started experimenting with wrinkles and small details. Concentraded on detailing the area round the eyes and forehead. It’s amazing what this software can do, and it is so much fun! Some wrinkles I like, but on the whole you could say I overdone it a bit; he looks kinda’ Cardassian. :lol:
I didn’t plan the geometry ahead, so now I see the sides of the forehead have too little polygons for the detail I want, hence the square pixel-distortion. If you have any tips for this rookie go ahead and shoot; I like to learn!

Next stop: the nose area.

[attach=33780]Hoofdpoging3.jpg[/attach]

Attachments

Hoofdpoging3.jpg

#8

Looking much better Plakkie…getting very close to my wrinkles but I need more crow’s feet (laughter lines)… around the eyes :smiley:

Think I’ve sussed out the Pinch Tool…now I need to put it into practise…Thanks for the tip

Dreamreef

#9

Thanks for the reply Dreamreef, I know you’re face doesn’t look as angry as this guy! :smiley:
About the pinch tool: first time I could help someone else down here, glad to be of assistance! If we take it one tool at a time, we will get there eventually :cool:.
p.s. You were right about the back of the head; I never realised the shape was like that. Can’t see the back of my head off course. :lol:

#10

Work on the nose and cheeks. I find it hard to paint a texture for it, because the skinshader has so much color itself. I have to use really watery colors to get a subtle effect and I can’t really see how it is going to turn out once I make a ‘best’ render. Anyone know if there is a way around this to see what you are doing?

[Hoofdpoging8.jpg](javascript:zb_insimg(‘33958’,‘Hoofdpoging8.jpg’,1,0))

#11

hey wow I really like the wrinkles on the forehead, eyes and nose. The mouth wrinkles still look a bit weird to me though. The one line in the middle of the nose looks a little odd to me. The pores look good there, but don’t think there are typically wrinkle type lines there. I agree on the newb club, was kind of suprised they didn’t have a forum for noobies.

#12

Hi buddy,

It’s funny, but your model has a cool kinda playdoh effect -just wanted to point it out.
It seems that your having fun with the exploring issue, that’s great :+1:

Just wanted you to remember that wrinkles are folds of skin, they have height and depth :wink:

If we had a newbie club… well… we would be recieving a lot of “don’t know how” answers :laughing:… but at least we wouldn’t feel alone :wink:

#13

Hey guys, thanks for the quick replies; keeps me going. :slight_smile:
So I actually stumbled on the ‘Plakkie’s Playdoh Effect’ that will make me famous on this forum? :lol: I think the eyebrows look kinda’ Playdoh; was that what you meant Elarcano, or is it the total shader quality? I still have to figure out how to apply different materials with different specular values onto it.

I know those mouth wrinkles are way off; that is one of the drawback’s of the Exploration technique. (for which I will probably become absolutely famous as well. Maybe I should record a script that shows my technique of randomly trashing about loads of unflowing geometry… ;)) Somehow I lost all by subdivisionlevels along the way, so smoothing out an area of 150.000 poly’s is a bit of a pain. Maybe I will try to correct it though…

Maybe we should start a newbie-club; we could make it a signature for our posts, like… Plakkie, proud and ignorant member of the NewbieZ Club.

“I know nothing about the horse”

#14

I think you have some neat things going on with the textures, and the lighting/material looks good too.

The thing that I would consider revisiting, if I were you, would be the basic shape of the head. I picked a random picture off of google and drew some rough guidelines that might help you a bit. Notice that they eyes are about 1/2 way between the top of the head and the bottom, and the bottom of the nose is about half way between that line and the bottom, and then the mouth is about half way between that line and the bottom.

Above all, I encourage you to keep at it.

[attach=33985]face-proportions.jpg[/attach]

Attachments

face-proportions.jpg

#15

Thanks Bill, much appreciated! A friend of mine saw my image and showed me that some proportions were off, too. I made a quick correction and it looked so much more human! I will redo it carefully today, and that image you send will help me a LOT! :+1: Thanks again.

#16

It’s just amazing how easy Zbrush is to work with. Even with all that detail and no lower Subdiv Levels I can still correct basic proportions without loosing my details! :cool:
Lowered and changed the eyes a bit and raised the mouth a little. Smoothed out the wrong wrinkles round the mouth as well as I could. I think it allready looks more ‘right’, but I would appreciate any comments on the proportions and detail; they are helping a lot and I want to see if I can improve this image further. :slight_smile:

#17

Hey, I didn’t press Submit Reply just yet?! Here is the image talked about in the last reply:

[HoofdVoort1.jpg](javascript:zb_insimg(‘34024’,‘HoofdVoort1.jpg’,1,0))

#18

Proportions look much better now!! one thing I noticed is the nostrils seem to smooth upwards along the nose and into the upper cheek, maybe round em up and tighten em a bit…just thinking aloud :wink:

#19

Yeah, I think you’re right… That guy is now way to wrinkly and rough to have such smooth nostrils :). I need people that think aloud Psionic, thanks! :smiley:

#20

Hi -again- buddy,

What Bill pointed out is great! You can also download other faces through the web and see some general proportions of the face :wink:

With the lower SubDiv issue, you can try to press the “Recontruct SubDiv” button that’s located in Tool/Geometry and it will try to create a lower level. Some times ZB can’t do it, but it’s worth the try :+1: Another “solution” to the it’s to high issue is to turn on the quick/edit button and make the changes you wish, although you have to consider that it won’t be an exact move.

Another advise is to save the model with different names if you’re doing something “risky”

The top of the head is a bit flat to me… but hey! He could be like that :wink:

Keep on going man :+1:

PS.
Regarding the playdoh effect, you should remember how you did it… it could be usefull in the future :wink: