8baller

Wow....I love Dagger's stuff.

Great piece.

Todd

I've been sick for the majority of the past week. But I did manage to work on Mini Lord Arachnos a little. Basically I blocked out his mechnical arms and added his head to the figure.

Mini Lord Arachnos (WIP)

More to come as my lungs allow.

Todd

Alternate dimension people....work with him

Nice pic Juggy.

Ooooh, sorry. I've used ZBrush very sporatically for the last....2 or 3 years I think. And I mean VERY sporatically. Mainly just a basic understanding of the program and possible workflows with other applications. There were too many fundamental things I didn't know how to do that prevented me from really 'using' the software.

I hope to fix that this year.

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How long did it take you to get this far with Zbrush? Is it relatively easy to pick up and teach yourself?

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It took about 2 hours for the initial body sculpt. 1 Hour for the retypology and another hour or so of continuing to work on the details.

I've been teaching myself...definately nowhere near done. But I also have a good deal of years in traditional digital 3d. Honestly though, ZBrush is designed so "differently" than other 3d apps that experience with traditional 3d modeling (clay, etc) might be just as useful.

I've made a new years resolution to get a much better understanding of it so I've been hitting it pretty hard since the beginning of the year.

Thanks,
Todd

Not sure if this would be interesting to anyone, but I figure I'd try it out just in case. I'm working on my next mini-fig, Lord Recluse, and I'll be posting updates on my ZBrush blog showing the process.

There were a few people on the boards that said they were thinking about getting into ZBrush and I thought I'd share my....learning experiences.

There are a couple of posts about him already and I'll most likely be adding movies and other notes. So swing by the link below if you feel inclined to watch the progress...just please keep in mind I'm learning as well.

Todds (8 baller's) ZBrush Blog

Thanks,
Todd

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I'll just take an image of a figure and pay me some rent.



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LOL, I'm with you.

The cheapest place I've been able to find so far was $300 or so dollars for a 9" figure. Their site (not too much there...) is www.ownage.com

And to be clear...that's simply for the 3d output.

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*gets in line for a mini-fig commission*

I freaking love that thing. One of my old roommates used to collect HeroClix; not to actually play the game itself, but just to have a cool collection of little superhero and supervillain statues. It'd be awesome to have a virtual one done up of my namesake CoH character.

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Hmmmm another interesting idea. Good one. I'd probably make the proportions a little more realistic but yeah, I think I could put a HeroClix type base together pretty quick.

But do you really think an image of a figure is cool enough?

Great idea.

Todd

Thanks again for all the feedback folks! I want to get a couple more under my belt until I'd think about charging anything. I'd like to run a test on one to see if I could pull it into Maya for rendering.

Todd

I did a couple of renders with various other materials in ZBrush and I think they turned out pretty fun.

War Patriot in Copper

War Patriot in Bronze

Man, what I wouldn't give to be able to output these things at a resonable cost. I could make one heck of a heroes/villains chess set.

Todd

Thanks all. They're a lot of fun to do. I may pick one or two others to randomly 'practice' with.

What do you get when you cross a new years resolution of learning ZBrush with stepping on countless Fisher-Price figures barefoot...other than sore feet?

CoH mini-figs of course. I'm playing around with a new project of creating come heroes in a mini-fig style. Here's the first:

War Patriot

Created in ZBrush.

Thanks all! I'm experimenting with this mini-fig style to see if there's anything there worth while. They're fun and relatively quick to do.

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wait...is your avatar Michael Clark Duncan?!

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Hehehe, it is....Michael Clark Duncan as 8 Baller.

Bigger Image on 8 Baller's site

Good eye.

Todd

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Mind if I ask what kind of tutorials (If any) you've used to help you get started?

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No problem. Other than the general google search, I'd check two places first.

1. www.zbrush.com and their "education" menu...they have both free and commercial stuff listed there.

2. www.zbrushcentral.com and their tutorials thread.

Between those two resources...and a little time to play around...you should be set.

Most importantly, have fun.

Todd

Nope, not talking about tilt, but the actual alignment (rotation) of the pen tip.

Best example would be a tall, narrow brush. Where holding the pen vertically and pulling down would get you a thin line. Then, rotating the pen 90 degrees and pulling down gets you a really thick line.

That's the alignment I'm talking about...and even the dang Wacom sales rep that I talked to at a conference couldn't tell me how to do it.

Seemed like a simply enough thing to do...but I guess not. Then special pen looks a lot like a big wide tip, felt tip marker.

I agree with you on the "just" 512 levels thing. The darn tablet we initially got only had 2....on and off

Todd

Try Balth's demo editor and play around specifically with the wizards. I think they'll do what you're looking for.

Tablet...couldn't get any art done without it.

That being said...I also suggest the try before you buy method. If you know someone around you that has one that would be best...and try it for a good week or so (it's most likely going to be very odd at first).

However, if you go with the 'inexpensive test route' first...you need to make sure it has pressure sensativity. We made this mistake the first time around on our end and went another 2 years without one because it seemed so.....limiting.

My vote for size is in the "size matters" category. I've got a pretty large tablet here...and I've had tiny ones...and they just don't seem 'right' working on (could be just me though).

OH and something that took me forever to finally find an answer to....in order to have the brush 'rotate' in your hand and on the tablet...it requires a special pen tool. The standard one won't do it. (Don't know why that little fact was so hard to find, but I tried searching options on all programs I have for months before finally coming across it).

What kind of movements did you have in mind? A straight track or dolly, a spinning shot, or something more free form flying?

Linear isn't too bad. I think there's a wizard in Balth's demo editor for the spinning camera....the freeform...last I checked, was more in the 'nightmare' category.

Thanks Miko. There were a few places that gave me problems...mainly the feet, but it went along better than the last time (which is always good right?).

Yeah, it would have been easier to tell who it was if I had the head already sculpted...but then again, that may have made it too easy.

Ok...still playing with ZBrush and this "Fisher Price - style" thing I'm working with. ZBrush has this cool little "elapsed time" recording feature that I had never touched, well I figured I'd give it a shot.

So...here's a figure sculpt that took me around 3 hours....reduced down to a little over 3 and a half minutes of video footage. And to make it a little fun...I'm not sayin' who it is.

Enjoy...it's a nifty little feature...

4 Minute Mystery Figure

psssst...and for those who watch it...please don't post who it is back here immediately. Thanks

I only did the torso because the head gets modeled from a sphere later (sorry).

Todd

Thanks a ton all!

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everyone needs to check out some of the other posts on that forum - truly inspiring.

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/forumdisplay.php?f=93

Lookin' forward to seeing yours Todd.

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Agreed...some are absolutely amazing...and I'm sure they'll get even more interesting to watch as they develop.

Thanks all WP has a very nice variety of characters. They're easy to work on

Todd

Thanks guys...and thanks again FrozenD for pointing this one out. Your piece in coming along nicely, as I've been watching . Best of luck.

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He's a 100-foot tall titan? I didn't really get that from my first look at the piece. My first look was instead all over trying to gleefully figure out what kind of cool gloppy force was trying to ensnake and ensnare his arm.

It's a great piece, but from reading more of his background, it seems like you're not well expressing in the piece the actual character you have in mind for him. Perhaps more thought is needed? He's quite a difficult character to express for sure.

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Agreed, in doing the concept sketch it defiantly hit me that having easily recognizable objects (most likely people dead or fleeing in terror, or several crumbled buildings) was going to be essential in selling the scale factor.

The figure base will be pretty detailed to accomplish this. Part of the beauty of ZBrush is the ability to modify things....much easier as a whole than say...Maya. Therefore I knew I could keep the concept sketch loose and let the character develop at things go.

Todd