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Soldier 2027

ZBrush Artworks
#7

wow! My soldier is looking way better than before! I mean, look at the first render and compare it this:

[05.jpg]06.jpg

Btw, are the images to big?

#8

Buy the way as an artist you will never be totally happy lol:) get used to it! as a pro you learn to never fall in love with your stuff! just keep working and moving ahead. the more you do the better you get. I think he is looking great. a vast improvement! keep it up! as for the head only a few minor things. the nose bridge may be too thin. and his ears are pinned. pull em out a bit. remember reference reference reference! besides that you are on the right track!
Great job and enthusiasm!!!

#9

In fact, I’m very nitpicky with 3D stuff. As you said, I’m never happy, there is always something to improve.! Thanks for the criticsm, I’ll work on it right away! :smiley:

#10

Yes, I think his head was too square before. Looking much better now.

By best guesses from your latest pix? Cheekbones need more definition, nostrils too wide, bridge of the nose too straight and should dip in just before it joins with the forehead.

Getting yourself some anatomy reference photos off the web will go a long way towards helping you out.

All this with a grain of salt, please!? I’m new to ZBrush, and just trying to point out what I think as best I can from my very skimpy knowledge of anatomy. And I mean VERY skimpy. :slight_smile:

#11

Hi!,

Very nice improvements on the model! First let me say that the work on the temporal depression on the side of the head and the temporal muscle that "fills" the depression are very well done. This is a really hard area for a lot people since it's hard to believe how "deep" the depression really is towards the front of the head. The glabella area is also very nice, this region is quite complex since so many curves in the upper skull meet up here. The body is also going very well, I especially like the way you are incorporating the twisting that occurs in the upper forearm muscles, it's a tricky area and you pulled it off very nicely - also: very nice beginning on the hand- it has a real feel of the bones underneath and the strength of the character. Going back to the head, there are a couple of subtle things I notice with the bone structure that might give you some headaches later, especially when you tackle the ears. It looks a little like the Zygomatic arch (cheek bone) is as wide or wider than the parietal eminance at the rearward upper sides of the skull. This may be based on whether the renders are in perspective or orthographic mode, so I could be totally off on this. If it is correct that this is the case, that doesn't mean it is "wrong" but rather, it is much more common for the parietal eminance (widest part of the cranium) to be wider than the Zygomatic arch (widest part of the face). The reason a wide zygomatic structure can be a headache with modeling the ear is that the bottom/back end of the Zygomatic bone structure is what locates the "hole" of the ear and if the arch is very wide then it can be tricky to make the ear stand out as much as it actually does in the front view without making it look odd at other angles. The other thing is that the angle the "corner" of the jaw (the ramus of the mandible) might be a little too vertical and far back, crowding the ear, and it may get in the way of the ear being modeled easily to look right in all views, there is usually at least a little bit of rounding at the corner of the jaw - again this is only what is common, and not by any means absolute even in actual life, let alone in art. I definitely agree with Monkeymuscle's advice on the subject of reference, even if one decides to work in a stylized manner, it always is good to have it at hand when working. If you are looking for a good reference, Eliot Goldfinger's "Human Anatomy for Artists" is one I personally find very helpful. The book is expensive (I think $65 US at the moment) but it's very good for the details of anatomy and when combined with a more general book such as "Bridgeman's Complete Guide to Drawing from Life" by George Bridgeman, it makes for a very potent combination of references. There are, of course also a ton of other anatomy books and internet reference, but whichever ones you prefer, it definitely helps to have the reference visible while you are actually working - Also I can definitely recommend the John Brown sculpting videos, and Zack Petroc's Zbrush videos from Gnomon, Scott Spencer also has some excellent videos at gnomonology.com (disclosure: I am a Gnomon alumni and Mr. Brown and Mr. Spencer were among my teachers so I'm probably biased;) ).. Sorry this response turned out so long, but your work is really looking good! Please keep updating it as you go. Look forward to seeing where this goes next.
#12

Johannes you are really helping out a lot! Thank you very much! I’m not sure if I understood everything you said, tho. It’s probably my fault, as I’m not perfect with english. I have sketched a bit over the model to make sure I understood correctly. In the first picture I just painted the different parts so that everybody can identify them easier. In the second image, the pink parts, are the parts I think you advised me to change. The partial eminence should begin where the zygomatic arch does and the rasmus should have some curving. I took this as a reference:

[08.jpg]07.jpg

I also think the ear should be a little bit higher.

#13

i too am a gnomon alumni, getting the dvds or vids is a great idea. its always advantagous to see othe peoples work process on thw way to developing your own. not to mention inspiring. well worth the money. mine are almost worn out completely:) your on the right track!

#14

Hi!,

Norman3d, actually the problem may be my english, it's only my second language so I sometimes forget the grammar structures;) . I was going to ask if it would be all right to do a couple of screen grabs of the skull underwork image that you did and the latest face renders; there are somethings that just are easier to show than to describe, but I want to be sure it's ok with you first. I also should apologize for using all the medical terminology but when I studied with Mr. Spencer, he pointed out that it establishes a very precise language for communicating about a sculpt ("parietal eminance" is generally more understandable than "this thingy here...";), once one has the vocabulary) and thus aids in communication between artists. I also want to compliment you for doing so much work on this model; and being so open to critiques about it. It's a rare gift and one that is incredibly important for doing this work professionally (that's one of the things I am most fond of at ZBCentral: the support and openmindedness of its community of artists.) Talk to you soon,

Johannes Huber

P.S. Monkeymuscle; I’m glad I’m not the only one who’s almost worn out his Gnomon dvds;)

#15

I didn’t notice at all! I thought you probably were American, since your profile says you are from L.A.

Absolutely! Do whatever you want with them. :wink:

At first I was kinda shocked. :lol: But I’m quickly getting used to it. As you say, it does make sense to name the things properly.

I just love 3D, and every new thing I learn makes me love it even more. So I am open for critiques. I need them and I like them. Monkeymuscle and you are making me a better artist, so let me thank you once again! (I’ll never get tired of this) Can’t wait to hear from you (or anyone else) soon!

Edit: Btw, are you German? Johannes sounds pretty German to me :stuck_out_tongue:

#16

I have left the head to the side for now, and have taken some time to design the bionic arm. I quickly mocked something up. Actually, I’m pretty happy with my drawing skills. I thought I didn’t have any at all!

[arm_concept.jpg]

Do you think I should model this in Zbrush or 3dsmax?

#17

Hi!,

I think what you need to do is to decide what sort of "world" your soldier is living in: Is it a post apocalyptic disaster area, is it a nice shiny future, a dystopic future where everything is good on the surface but evil lurks beneath or some other story. That will dictate the forms that the design will take and their final level of wear, tear and so forth, and may also feed ideas of what else to do with the character accessories. Until you do this, it is very hard to avoid the design "cliches" that we all tend to want to avoid but frequently don't. This was an exercise in design process that we did regularly at Gnomon in our various classes and I think it adds tremendously to the "reality" of the final product of anyone using it. It may also lead to the generation of an entire story, multiple characters and in some few cases even to a viable intellectual property that may be able to be marketed down the road. The other thing I might do is do a Google (or other) image search for both modern and ancient forms of armor and use these as reference, just as you would the anatomy references for the character body, and let those "inform" your artistic decisions (as an example a european suit of plate armor but made with modern resistant fabrics and plates with holders for modern equipment like firearms, explosives etc. instead). I frequently force myself to do many design iterations before deciding on one because, from experience, I know anything less is likely to leave me with a design I will later be unsatisfied with (I went through approximately 50-75 thumbnail ideas (many of which were, as they should be, just awful as ideas), 15 different concept sketches and then 4 final illustrations before reaching the design on the "Metaluna Mutant" redesign I posted on ZBC a few weeks back and I still view that sculpt as a "concept sculpt" not a finalized design and am busy figuring out what I can do using the suggestions of the people kind enough to critique it. I guess what I am trying to say is to take the time to really play with all the crazy possibilities before settling on a final design and worrying about how to build it. Take your idea and make it more than just a "soldier from the future", find out who he is, where he works/lives, why he does what he does, and who are his enemies/opponants and really have some fun making the character your own rather than trying to hurry along to final product without those answers. In actual production, it's very rare to really have time to do all that stuff to the degree we want, so take advantage of the time luxury that you have on a personal project to really work those things out. On the idea of what program to build the hard surfaces like the bionic arm, you really can do that in either ZB or MAX, but I find that ZB offers a better environment for me to "play" without worrying about edge loops, poly count or anything and lets me just concentrate on design, then I'll go back and do a retopologizing in either ZB or Maya (or whatever other program) and then bring it back to ZB and play with the fine details of it, again focussing only on design, and retopologizing later, if needed. Other people work out everything in their 3d program and then port it in, and that also works very well. I think you should try both ways and see which is easiest for you.

Talk to you soon,

Johannes

#18

hehe, I knew somebody would come up with this. It is definatly my fault, as I didn’t specify what exactly I was going to do. The soldier I’m doing won’t have any armor, I wanted to do a little scene, really basic. Let me explain to you…
Have you seen Black Hawk Down? There is a scene where a soldier is playing Baketball at the base during his free time. I wanted to do something similar. I just wanted to pose him, standing quite still, with the basketball under his left arm looking at the horizon, as if something was approaching and he didn’t recognize it very well (maybe an alien ship or something, haven’t decided yet.) By doing such a scene, I’m transmiting a familiar image, like as if nothing had really changed. Basketballs still look the same, and it’s not the end of the world (not yet atleast.) But at the same time I could show a glimps into the future. The human race has evolved in a fashion way. Not only is the tecnology awesome, but design is always more and more important. I was probably inspired by Dubai. You look at that city, and it’s just great. They have achived an awesome style. It looks both, futuristic and beautiful. So the arm was going to represent the future and the basketball would represent no big change at all. The soldier himself should “rerpresent” both concepts, that’s why I’m going to put him some slightly futuristic clothes. I was also thiking of adding some kind of future fighters in the background flying to the direction the soldier is looking, in order to create some dynamism.
I’m not a fan of the whole post apocalyptic thing. I think the idea has been used too much… specially with Mad Max in the 80s. What do you think?

#19

Hi!,

Sorry to take a bit of time getting back to you, but I had to finish a model and render it so I could post it before people came and picked up my main workstation for repairs and upgrading (yay!). Blackhawk Down is a movie I only saw once because it gets a little too close to reality (I used to work in military stuff...) but it's an excellent movie for getting the "feel" of some parts of the military wartime experience (good and bad) and the basketball image you mention is very much a part of that "touch of reality" that works in the film. I agree that using Dubai as a source of ideas for a landscape at once familiar and different works really well. You may also find some other interesting buildings and sketches if you google search under the name "Zaha Hadid" who is a middle eastern architect with very interesting ideas on form and light. Also check out some of the newer architecture in Riyadh, there are several recent additions to the skyline that are also very unique in their approach. Hope to see more of your work soon,

Johannes

#20

So here is a little update. Been busy rendering my Darth Maul model for my demo reel.

I think it’s starting to look the way I imagined. I’m having some trouble with the eyes, tho.

[[10.jpg](javascript:zb_insimg(‘71084’,‘11.jpg’,1,0))

Attachments

11.jpg

#21

I’ve been paying a bit with the materials and I’ve also done some work on those boots.

[12.jpg]

#22

I’ve pulled out those eyebrows a little bit and I have finally sculpt the ear. Is there something wrong with the eyes?

[13.jpg]

#23

Hi!,

Lots of nice progress on the piece! I think I know where some of the troubles with the eyes may be. If you go back to your rendition of the bony undermasses and compare it against an actual skull, you will see that the orbits of the eye are actually larger and deeper on the real skull. Now the trick of it is that the upper part of the character head's orbits seem to be where they should be, but the lower edge of the orbit looks a bit high. The confusing thing when we look at this area in life is that there is the very large obicularis oculi muscle, a bunch of expression based areas near by and several pads of fat nearby all of which make can make discerning the real structure very difficult. The other thing, and again, I could be wrong on this, is that the outer corner of the eyelid (but not the fatty overhang above it, that looks fine to me) feels as though it isn't deep enough inset to the skull. It is true that the human eye isn't a "perfect" sphere, but it is pretty close and you may want to make a small sphere and place one in each eye socket as sub tools so they can act as templates helping to guide you where the two corners of the eye actually are. Talk to you soon,

Johannes

#24

Thanks for the C&C! I haven’t touched the eye again, tho. Yesterday I retopologized the guy. This is exactly the workflow I followed:

-Retopologized the head in Zbrush and exported it
-I also exported the first subdivision of the whole model
-I then took both exported meshes (head and body) and “stiched” them together in 3dsmax.
-I exported the new mesh as an obj
-In Zbrush, I projected the details of the original ZTool into this one.

Now I can still fix some little things such as the eyes… and I’ll add nice detail to the skin (but I doubt my computer will be able to handle it, so I will have to use Photoshop)

Oh! I’m woried about the next big step: Unwrapping… I have no idea how I should do this. I suggest this workflow:

-Export the first subdivision as an obj
-Open it with headus UVLayout and unwrapp it
-Export it again as an obj
-In Zbrush replace the lowest subdivision with the obj

Now this sounds fine, but I’ve doing some tests… and it seems Zbrush scres the vertex order… or maybe it’s UVLayout… or the obj… I have no idea.

So instead of doing all this I suggest an alternative workflow:

-Export the first subdivision as an obj
-Open it with headus UVLayout and unwrapp it
-Export it again as an obj
-In Zbrush project the details of the original model on the new unwrapped obj

Everything should go well, right? I’m just projecting (not replacing) the model. The unwrapp shouldn’t get screwed up, right? Or maybe it does…

What do you think? Btw, I highly recommend headus UVLayout.

[14.jpg]

#25

Just a tip on the UVLayout question…instead of choosing ‘save’ once you’ve
unwrapped it, choose ‘update’ and the point order will not be touched. Then
when you re-import back in Z3, select the one that’s got the ‘-uvlayout.obj’
extension.

cheers. :slight_smile:

WailingMonkey

#26

thanks for the tip. But it isn’t working. Check out the thread I just created about this problems I’m having.