All right let's start sculpting! We see that I've started with the Mudbox base head, and
I have added some accessories to it: some teeth, and some spheres for the eyeball.
I modeled the teeth in Maya. I'm going to reshape the head
around these props so that I can create the overall form first.
I'm using several major brushes for this. First is the Wax brush that I use to build
up volume. Next, is
Foamy brush, used cut in sharp details. And the last is the Grab tool that I'm
using to adjust the shape of the mouth with here. Let's talk about the Foamy brush first.
I use it with a very sharp fall-off and a negative value
to cut detail into the surface.
I use it to add very sharp edges, to really define features.
Wax brush is next. I like the wax brush to
add a lot of volume and to build up shapes.
So I'm using it here to add eyelids,
and then I'll use the Foamy brush to cut in around; to define them better.
I also use the Wax brush to cut in
for very large areas: the hollows under the cheek bones or in the temples.
And then the Grab brush, I use extensively
to make overall changes to the form of my objects, like
reshaping the size at the skull, repositioning
the nose, and repositioning the features of
the face on the model. Once the overall structure is there, the basic shapes of
the face are there, then I'll focus on adding detail.
Usually for the face, this is in the form blocking out muscle masses.
We don't tend to think of the face as having a lot of muscle, but every
movement on the face is defined by muscles.
The muscles are located in two key areas,
the muscles around the eyes, and the muscles around the mouth.
We're working in two radial areas,
around the eyes and around the mouth.
I'll build-up volume... here I'm just using the Freeze brush
in combination with the Grab brush to
tilt the jaw to the side a little bit. Now the object is very
asymmetrical. So I have to be careful with that. As I'm defining things I'm using
the Grab brush,
the negative Foamy brush, and the Wax brush,
to better shape the form of the muscles
that are defining the characters features. So the overall shape
is one aspect, butit's the detail that we put into fine features
that really sells the model as being interesting and
lifelike. Not that this guy is at all lifelike!
All right, now I'm using the Pinch brush,
and we see that I'm using it to sharpen the details around
the eyes. So, wrinkles in the muscles around the eyes, sharpening the
crease of the eye lids, so we get a sharper defined border in that region.
And we want to remember that lines on the face, or
anywhere on the body, aren't actually there. There are no lines
on the human form, the way we think lines on, say, a comic book drawing.
What we're actually seeing is two different muscle masses is pushing up
against each other,
forming a crease, and that crease creates the illusion of a line.
So when we're creating negative lines, as I'm cutting in with my negative Foamy brush here,
we end up pinching those together to become sharper detail,
so that they don't look like big gouges that we've cut out of clay,
but instead they look like two muscles pushing up against each other,
creating tension, where we end up with that line,
at it will start to read as a bit more lifelike. One other tip for wrinkles is to blur the
endpoints, where the wrinkles meet with the rest at the surface around them,
that will make them feel like they're a part that surface, instead sitting on top.
Now I'll start to use my pinch brush to
define the wrinkles around the mouth, to really get those laugh lines
etched in around his face. And again,
we want to remember that we're not trying to create lines, that it is
muscular forces pushing up against each other to create those creases.
So we want to create those accordingly.
Now because I made my face asymmetrical,
I can't paint with symmetry on my brush,
we just want to keep that in mind. At some points, we will be able to use
symmetry, in other points with won't be able to use symmetry.
We want to keep track of what a brush is doing every time we start painting.
Whenever I'm sculpting I always follow the same general strategy:
blocking in broad shapes of
whatever sculpting first, and then I'll start to progressively
add more and more detail, adding
a little sharpness with the Pinch and the Foamy brushes.
Whenever we're sculpting, we have to remember that sculpting tools,
by their very nature, are very soft. We'll see that
as I add the Mohawk with the wax brush,
the resulting shapes are very soft. All the brushes do this.
As a sculptor, we need to compensate for that, and
very specifically work on adding sharpness and detail.
In this case, I use the Grab brush to add sharp edges to the Mohawk.
On the lips I'll add sharp edges
around the edges of the lips, the vermilion border, I think it's called,
with the Pinch brush. So I'm defining the shape
so we can see that anatomy better. I'll do the same on
the nostrils and the edges of the nose. And we can also use the Pinch brush
to you straighten out lines. Wherever we have wobbly lines because
our hand wasn't quite steady enough, we can use
the Pinch brush to smooth those lines out, to create nice
soft curves. Watch as I start adding
details on his cheek step: I step down to a lower level of
resolution, and this is because it's usually a lot easier to Smooth detail
on those lower mesh levels. So if we're working on a high res mesh,
and the smooth doesn't seem to be working very well, we want to step down
and use the Smooth on a lower level to resolve that problem.
A good example is what I'm doing here around the eye area.
I decided I wanted to change the muscles and the detail in that region.
Trying to smooth it a high level of detail gave me poor results, so I stepped down
and I'm able to very easily Smooth that detail.
Then I can go back in and add new detail
on the various levels by using my Wax
my Foamy brush to carve in sharper area
detail. So adding mass to muscles: I'm working in the nose area here.
and I start using the Wax brush, but then I switch to using the Sculpt
brush to get a more rounded bulge.
I'm just trying to emphasize here that I have multiple muscle groups
pushing up against each other, and it is those shapes that give us
characteristics that we think of as a face.
Next I will switch gears and work on the neck. Now with the neck,
I don't expected to receive as much attention as
the face of the character. Because it's not going to receive as much attention,
I don't want to spend as much time working on it, as I
would the areas that I know will receive a lot of attention.
We want to remember that as artists, we have a finite amount of time,
and we want to spend it where it will do us the most good.
Ok I just jumped in from Maya so that we see where these
eyeballs are coming from, these are eyes from a different character.
I brought them into Mudbox, and I've frozen them,
and I will reposition my eyelids around these eyes.
I'll be using the Grab brush and the Pinch brush
to create nice shapes, and similarly, I'm importing these
eyelashes in. And I'll try to edit them
in Mudbox using my Grab brush to position them, but Mudbox
only lets me position one at a time. It'll take forever to do it that way.
I need to go back into Maya and use my move tool.
I turn on my Soft Selection. If I set my Soft Selection
to Volume, the effect won't be limited to
the immediate object, it will spread to the objects around it.
That will allow me to very easily make the changes that I need.
Only one other point to make here: using the right tools for the job
makes that job a lot easier.
So the eye area, let's do the eyebrows. I start by using a Foamy brush, and instead of using
negative, I'll use it positive. And I'll do it on a separate layer, so that I can use the Erase
tool to blur the edges of it, so that the
edges fade into the surface of the skin.
With the Erase tool, any time we are using that, we want to use it at a relatively low opacity / brush strength.
Then I use the Pinch tool to sharpen those
strokes, so they become a bit more ridged.
Then I will Smooth over the middle area, and that will blend it all together,
to create something that looks like a whole, instead discrete strokes.
Up next is our hair brush. We can see that I have created a brush in Photoshop,
it looks like three blobs of white and
when I use that with the Repeat brush in Mudbox,
it gives us something that does do a nice job of creating sculptural looking
effect for the hair. I'll go over
the entire Mohawk with this,
and I'll use larger brush strokes to fill in
big areas, and then use smaller brush strokes to create more
fine details. I will also go in and
add individual strokes using the sharp negative
Foamy brush along the base of
the Mohawk to ground it to the head. I also use it whatever else I feel like I need to add
detail to it. So speaking of detail, let's add some skin detail to our object.
I will use my Spray brush with a cellular texture on it - and
for all the skin brushes, these are brushes I found online.
You can search for Mudbox brushes, you can also search
for ZBrush alphas, you can use those as stamps as well.
To create this skin, we have 3 separate effects: the skin effect that we can
see here,
that we cover the entire surface with. We want this on its own layer
so we can control the strength of it.
The next effect is
large pores. And the large pores are typically concentrated in the cheek area,
on the nose a little bit, and the chin.
We also add small pores, and these are generally
everywhere that big pores are not.
And then we also want some transition between the two types of pores,
something that transitions from the big
pores to the small pores. Fine resolution detail like this can be
difficult to see,
we may have to zoom in for Mudbox to render it properly,
it can be helpful to go to Viewport Filters and turn on
Cavity Ambient Occlusion. Now, on to the lips detail.
I'm using that same hair brush we used on the Mohawk
to create the overall wrinkles on the lips. And then I'll Smooth those to blend those
into the rest of the surface. Any time we're working with fine details like these,
we want to put it on its own Sculpting Layer, so that we can make changes to
just that layer alone.
Now I'm adding wrinkles to the surface of the skin,
and this is another Repeat brush I'm using here, someone created this really cool
wrinkle brush. I think I found it on the ZBrush Central forums.
We can see the wrinkles here on their own,
and you'll see that I've turned the layers for all the other effects off; the pores
and the skin detailing. This allows me to work
exclusively on the wrinkles. So I will smooth
them a little bit, so they blend into the surface of the skin better,
so that they don't look quite so sharp edged and ragged.
Up next is some simple texture painting. I'm going to
paint the Mohawk here. Because this is just a color layer,
I will just create a low res texture layer. I use my Paint brush to
apply the red to the surface, and then use the Paint Erase tool
to get rid any overspray onto the surface.
Next I use the Burn brush around base of the Mohawk,
to create a darker base that will anchor it to the head,
just a little bit better, also looks like dyed hair.
I use the Dodge tool on the tips of the Mohawk to make it a little bit
brighter and more vibrant, and draw attention to that area. Then I use both sets of tools
to brighten and darken here and there. This creates
groups or clumps of hair. This is the subtle kind of detail that adds the little
bit interest that
the viewer won't notice, but they will notice that it's not there.
Next is painting the face. I've got the base color, a flesh tone.
I'll start with a reddish pinkish color
and I will paint that in everywhere there are blood vessels
close to the surface of the skins. This is typically around the eyes,
the cheek area, on the chin,
the neck, and on the forehead.
The ears are pinkish as well.
I'll end up with a sunburnt looking person,
I'll use the blur brush to spread that paint detail
across the surface of the object, to create a more
even feel. I'll go back in with that Burn brush
and Burn around the eyes. I color in the lips with
a reddish brownish color, and again I use the blur tool to
smooth that into the surface. The next thing I will work on
is the eyebrows. We see that I paint the eyebrows in really really sloppy,
and I use to Blur tool to blur it into the surface so it fits.
And I'll do something very similar for the forehead vein.
I use a purplish color, and a set the strength to be very low
and paint that in and then just blend it into the surface.
Now, let's do some stubble for the shaved area of this guy's head.
I've created a new Texture Layer, but it's a Bump Layer,
not a Diffuse Layer. I'll use my Paint brush
with a noisy stamp spray attached to it,
and just spray that all over the area that would have stubble.
So along the shaved head, and where the beard would be.
Now, the trick is to make
our color map match the stubble bump map.
What we'll do is, we'll finish the stubble, and then we'll
Duplicate Selected that stubble bump layer. So: right click, Duplicate Selected,
and then right click, Move Selected, and move it to the diffuse channel.
So that will take this stubble texture layer that we created,
it will duplicate it, then move it to the diffuse channel, and now we have a color map
it looks like the stubble that we painted. And I'll Invert it to make it
black instead of white. And lastly, I'll create a new layer,
and I choose a bluish grayish tint, and spray
that blue-grey into the areas where we have that stubble.
I'll spray with noisy brush, and like I did with the skin,
I'll then Blur to blend it into the painting around it.
And that's about all there is to this guy. Little bit of sculpting, little bit of painting,
some trickery with the bump,