what would be the best approach to do something like this?
Thanks
Great question
I cant answer the question but I could join it, cos Id like to know how to do something like this.
I dont know if Zbrush brushes can use objects as a “color”, in this case, instancing one scale over given surface…
Hope someone can give simple answer !!
Those are amazingly sharp to be done in zbrush with alphas, all i can think of is it could of possibly been single subtools on top of eachother, each scale placed very nicely. I could be wrong though 
That’s my wife’s (http://www.ashleyjukes.com/) Captain America model.
She modeled a single scale, and then hand placed them overtop of a torso sculpt. You could potentially achieve something similar with alphas, but you would need a very highly subdivided mesh to get such sharp details.
Placed them one by one!!! :o I admire the sheer hard work and perseverance that must have gone into doing that.
yes it is indeed your wife.
I didn’t find it appropriate to ask a technical question on her blog.
so i asked for assistance here
I apologize I should have posted the source and the artist.
I hope i didn’t give the wrong impression I was just interested as the scales are just perfect and plan on doing a Captain in the future.
Hey, no apologies necessary, I just wanted to let you know how it was done, and share the full image.
I think a couple people asked about the scales on her blog, and I know she got a bunch of emails about the scales in particular.
-Kolby.
KolbyJukes,
When you say that each of the scales are individually placed are you saying that each scale is a subtool? I can understand how they can be placed in a fixed picture but it looks like they are actually attached to the model given the rotation shown in the various Captain pictures above. Were they done with Projection Master? This, like an alpha approach, would require an extremely high rez model.
They are probably placed down in another package.
The model was done in Mudbox, so no they’re not subtools. Ashley made a single scale model, and then duplicated it and hand-placed them in XSI, this was then imported into mudbox.
Kolbyjukes,
Thanks. It looked like it was something that would have been extremely difficult to do in ZBrush.
Brian