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The Hobbit - WetaWorkshop Design Studio work

ZBrush Artworks
#21

Hi there, I’m a digital sculptor and designer at Weta Workshop. Most of my involvement on The Hobbit was in the Collectible line released. I have sculpted several of the Dwarves as well as Azog on the Warg for the Weta Hobbit Collectibles range using Z-brush.

It was an interesting process to navigate, and it evolved as we sculpted more figures in the range. After a piece had been fully sculpted, we then cut the figure into pieces and inserted a peg and hole so that when the pieces were 3D printed, they would be ready to fit together snugly. I’ve attached a couple of pics of that process as well as the finished Z-brush pieces. After they’re 3D printed, we moulded and cast the pieces in hard plasticine and sculptors cut some of the detail back in that was lost in the printing process. 3D printing is getting better and better to where we’re no longer having to do this part of the process, and can take the 3D print directly into paint, which is awesome!
Here’ is a link to the Weta Website where you can see the finished, painted collectibles:
http://www.wetanz.com/hobbit-auj/

Cheers guys, I hope you enjoy!
AzogOnWarg4Web1.jpg
AzogOnWarg4Web2.jpg
Balin4Web1.jpg
Balin4Web2.jpg

Balin4Web3.jpgBofur4Web.jpg

#22

And a few more…

Bofur4Web.jpg
Fili4Web3.jpg
Kili4Web3.jpg
Portraits4Web.jpg

#23

wow! beautiful work! do you keep perspective on or turn it off in Zbrush when working on something that needs to be printed?

#24

Wow!Awesome!

#25

Stunning work!! :+1:
Cheers,
Selwy

#26

Wow!Awesome! :+1:small_orange_diamond:+1:small_orange_diamond:+1:small_orange_diamond:+1:small_orange_diamond:+1:

#27

Nice to see your sculpts man, loved the movie ^^

#28

Lovely. I was watching the second movie few days back and was wondering if it was vfx or animated?

Were the sculpts actually used in the movie in or they are just for visualization and 3D printing collectibles?

Any chance you are coming out with any book/video on the workflow process of some of these?

As I am sitting half way around the world, such a book will be very resourceful.

#29

Very nice work Andrew and Lindsey! :+1:

#30

Cheers guys, thanks very much!
to answer a couple questions; Yes I do use perspective while sculpting collectibles, though I keep it on a low level like 35 and toggle back and forth often. And No these weren’t used as assets in the actual films, but were sculpted specifically for collectibles. We began by working on several pose options for each. I may actually work up a video for the collectibles process, stay tuned for more info on that! :wink:

#31

awesome work !! very inspiring

#32

Awesome work! This stuff inspires me so much. I dream of working in Weta someday, and that Mr. Jackson will be making The Silmarillion by that time, hehe :wink:

#33

hey lindsey! great to see your stuff here too. i remember seeing some of your stuff at cghub.
not sure if you already have answered this, but did you use scan data for the heads or was the done completely free-hand?
how much time do you generally use on a piece like the balin, statue?

i hope you’ll get that video done:)

-r

#34

wow!!! This is all kinds of awesomeness! :D:+1:

#35

Hey thanks again guys, so happy we could share stuff here!
RasmusW, yes we did use scan data for the faces. Depending on the character, some of the scans had varying levels of detail and they were always in a blank expression and had no hair. Most of them had lost detail, so we had to sculpt it back in and put it into an expression and sculpt the beard. The scans were incredibly helpful though, as in collectibles the buyers are always extremely concerned about the likeness, so at least all the major forms are in place. The rest of the body, clothes and details are sculpted with exception to some of the weapons.
On average, a dwarf would take around 150-200 hours to sculpt, depending on costume, pose, and feedback from clients. Cheers!

#36

thanks a lot for the info lindsey.

now, i’m just waiting for more, heheeh…

-r

#37

Thanks so much everyone for the awesome response! And to ZBC for the top row!

We’ll be sharing more in the upcoming months so stay tuned :slight_smile:

#38

Great!

#39

Geeeeuss, Sir you are an Amazing Artist! man just had to say that…Damn that’s some Truly Beautiful Renders geeeus…
All the best to you
Lou
and yes I’m a very big fan of yours…:+1:
I kinda go off the edge sometimes… just a little …