Some people have been wondering about my ZBrush process. For this post I’ll be talking about this model that I worked on:
To practice my ZBrush Sculpting skills, I would go to CGHub and look for a picture I would like to turn into its 3D equivalent.
For this sculpt that I created in ZBrush, I used the the amazing concept by YANGCHOLIN. Here is the original concept:
http://cghub.com/images/view/486649/
Sculpting with ZBrush
I wanted to practice and improve working with clothing in ZBrush. I also wanted to create something that had an MMORPG feel to it. It was quite fun to do, to make sure everything looked like the concept. It was fairly difficult to work with the facial resolution as I was working with ZSpheres. The polygon resolution was quite low on the face. 
The armour was also quite hard to do, as it always kinda looked like clay. I got a fairly decent result in the end but it does still give a clay-ish result. The clothing was was a blast to do though. Even though I hardly use the Standard zbrush brush any more, I feel it’s the best for clothing still and it gives really nice results. For everything else I just use the clay build up brush.
The intricate details on her armour and clothing was also quite fun to do. I used the brushes and the techniques learned from Hai Phan (http://haikai.net) to create the result I wanted. The brush he uses is similar to the damien_standard brush but it doesn’t quite pinch when you draw. It gives you really nice results for the harder edges just like her collar and the gems.
Looking back on it now, the face could be vastly improved though. The clothing and objects was done pretty well but the face quite be improved quite a bit I think. Even though I spend a whole lot of effort on the face, I still feel it’s an area that should be improved.
For this exercise, I learned a lot about character modelling in zbrush, especially in relation to humans, clothing and armour. I had a great time modelling it, though at times my hand felt like wanted to give out, it was still a fun, interesting and challenging process.
What Now?
When I created this model, my intention was to retopologize it, texture it then rig it. It’s been quite a while since I’ve finished it now, but I’ll probably get around to it eventually. I’ve gained a lot of experience since then; I was worried about the retopology at the time. Retopology is still quite daunting but I’ve worked on several models since this one, and retopologized them without any fuss so doing retopo for this model shouldn’t be too hard. But for now I’ll put it on the back burner since I’m extremely busy over at AIE.
Extra Pictures
Anyway here are some extra images if you want to see all the details I put into the model.
