cool stuff. i too was in the games industry for several years and am looking to possibly getting back/building up a new portfolio. best of luck
also - id love to see your process if possible - on the retopolgizing of the last guys armor etc. i never thought to block things out like that in zbrush and then clean them up afterwards. very interesting
Thanks for the feedback!
3Dean: I assimilated them. 
And thanks for the ideas! I may do that!
OrgoneGhost: I’d be happy to share my process, but I must admit, I’m stilling working the kinks out of it, so it’s not much of a process just yet. Sculpting a 3D concept sketch in ZB is pretty quick for the most part. And retopologizing can be… but that’s where you could go in any one of a million directions… since my guy is supposed to have lots of little parts and details, it’s a bit tricky to determine whether to retopologize individual components and export those, or retopologize everything as one mesh, bring that into max and break it up. I’ve tried a little of both, but neither was fast or seemed efficient. Need to rethink it.
So I’ve been playing with my dragon a bit and experimenting with scales (which you won’t find in this render…explanation below)…
1st try, scales were too small and didn’t read. 2nd try, scales were too big and too similar in size and scale, so didn’t look natural. 3rd try (and this is where I realized that layers in ZB3 are a wonderful thing) was a charm… BUT, I saved my .ZTL, restarted ZB3 to start rendering, but my .ZTL won’t load! So I lost a fair bit of work. Grrrr.
So, I reverted to my previously saved version, just before the scales v3 (he looks a little naked to me now), and rendered that… here’s the progress so far…
Real-time render from ZB3. I just mixed a couple materials in post processing. Still lots to do, but I felt like showing my progress. Lots of details you’re not seeing (stomach, back, etc), but I’ll post more images when I get a chance. Really want to get some scales back on him and ultimately put him in an environment/scene/setting.
Also, I’m tired of saving one version of an image with a “stamp” for my portfolio, and another for ZBC… so from now on, I’m just going to use my portfolio stamp. So that’s the reason for the gratuitous “created by zero dean” and © info.
nice work!
Cool!
I agree Cool!!!
Andreseloy
proliphic and high quality!
Andreseloy
wow…love the dragon! really nice concept and realisation…
Here’s a more detailed version of Brutus. It doesn’t line up exactly with the textured version, as I knew I wouldn’t be able to get this out of ZB3 (lack of displacements for now), so I went a little heavy with it on the scarring.
I look forward to eventually being able to combine something like this with the textured version. 
So here’s another character I’ve been working on recently…trying to add a different look to my budding portfolio.
He’s a weird little jester dude.
I’m not entirely happy with the hands/gloves in this, but I can’t pinpoint the issue…other than perhaps they’re not proportioned well…and the wrinkles may be too heavy?
First, a flat colored version so you have an idea of the scheme I’m heading for…
hello Dean,
1e of all: what alot of fine work you got here!
many wips @ the same time, and still looks great!
now for some other aproach i “think” youre choices are pretty save choices
the joker, orc, dragon, sci fi soldier, man.
but i wish i could make them like that! 
greets: Joep
now i am zero dean fan!!! love the way you make your character
really cool and fun
Andreseloy
Thanks for the feedback!
Joep: Yeah, I’m juggling lots of different WIPs because I recently started my portfolio over from scratch as I’m jumping out of professional photography and back into CG…and the last time I was job searching and needed a CG portfolio was 2000… And all the work I have from my previous CG job (2001-2004) is architecture based (buildings for Rise of Nations).
And rather than just work and finish one thing, I’m trying to work on a bunch, to show range, and so my “recent works” section doesn’t look empty. I am slowly bouncing around from one to another to steadily work them to completion.
Plus, I’ve really only been using ZBrush since April…so I take what I learn on one model and apply it to the next. Learning new features and refining my work. Which is also why my works are steadily beginning to look more and more like they were ZBrushed, even though it was(is) integral even with the low poly stuff here. I’m still learning something new everyday.
As for “safe” subject matter… I’m open to ideas. It’s really hard to pick cool things to model that haven’t been done before! So I’ve just been working on stuff that interests me.
Andreseloy: Thanks so much! Your comments are very motivating!
I spent last night experimenting with making my own alphas by sculping into planes and using the depth enabled canvas. Also played with the brush wrapmode to experiment with tiling, but most to aid in alpha creation. I must say, the combination of these features is amazing!
Anyway, here’s the latest version of my dragon, this time with scales. He’s not perfect, I also rendered some turntable movies last night and noticed some things I need to change… but he’s coming along. Let me know what you think. And as always, constructive criticism is appreciated. Anything I can do to make this guy better.
As a side note, I’m going to have to go back to my unposed mesh and re-add all the details (scales, wrinkles, etc) again because I added all these things after posing…and I just haven’t discovered a good way to go back to default.
You’re going to love the layers capability that ZB3 has then. Sculpt all your detail on one layer, and pose the whole thing on a seperate layer, letting you work on both pose and sculpting (nearly) independently!
hi zerodean, looks good with scales but…yeah always a but right?..anyway…they are too uniform in size…specially on the legs…i think varying the size…such as getting smaller as they go down the leg or something like that anyway would make it more interesting. looks cool. and yeah…check out using layers…a great way to tryout different things.
Thanks for the feedback guys! I’ve been playing with layers, but only started after I’d already posed this guy… I didn’t think about posing on one layer and detailing on another…sounds awesome! I’ll play with that~
You’re right, scales are still too uniform. You should’ve seen my first version (this is scales version #4). They’ve been steadily getting less uniform… but I see now I need to add some more variation to create visual interest.
The previous no-scales version had a bit more visual interest because of the detailing…which gets a little lost with all these uniform scales.
I’ll work on it. Thanks for the great feedback. Anyone else?
ZeroDean,
thx! you inspired me!
btw: i lately try 2 make my old stuffed animals.
because i also felt like that.
for me it was a good step towards personality.
greets, Joep
ps: i love the dragon!
Another character I’ve been working on. Just not sure where to go with this… could be an alien…could be a goblin, the eyes and texture change everything. Should I add horns? more wrinkles? Make him more evil looking? more friendly? jewelry?
[attach=60326]kwirkz_04.jpg[/attach]
Really nice work… Love the dragon!
