Shran in ZBrush

[Mr. Cellophane]

Hey guys! Some of you might remember me. I posted here a couple of years ago and decided to come back after the new movie came out. Well, of course, I headed straight for the Trek Art section.

Anyway, I've been playing around with a wonderful program called ZBrush. It's basically a digital sculpting tool. I'm still pretty new at it, but it's a lot of fun to play around with.

I decided to start working on a bust of my favorite Andorian, Shran. Here's what I have so far:

It's still just a really rough sketch basically of him, but it's a start. The lips and eyes are really tough to nail down for some reason.

Comments/Critiques always welcome!

 

[Ziz]

I have no idea how CG modeling programs work, but it looks like it's off to a good start. Can you change the surface color to a blue tone? The color might help you "see" it better as you refine it.

 

[Mr. Cellophane]

Zbrush works pretty much like sculpting in real life. You start with a primitive and push, pull, cut, and add to shape it to your liking. It's like playing with clay, I love it!

Here's an update. I decided to pretty much start over on some areas (really, I only left the nose intact).

I focused on the lips first, as they gave me a lot of trouble. I think I'm at a pretty good place with them, but I'm still not 100% happy. Next, I adjusted the overall shape of the head a little bit.

I'm going to try to sculpt Jeffery Combs' face first, then add the Andorian details later.

 

[Brutal Strudel]

That's looking really good there. The one thing ENT got absolutely right, imao, were the Andorians.

 

[Mr. Cellophane]

Thanks! Andorians are my favorite Star Trek race and to see them represented so well on Enterprise was awesome!

Small update:

Blocked in the eyes and adjusted some things. I think it's coming together nicely.

 

[Mr. Cellophane]

Added a few more details. I'm probably going to start working on the Andorian bits soon.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

I have no idea how CG modeling programs work, but it looks like it's off to a good start. Can you change the surface color to a blue tone? The color might help you "see" it better as you refine it.

Z-Brush is an awesome program... one of those which, once you've used it, it's almost impossible to stop using. It's invaluable for doing "sculpted" work (like faces, or anything organic). As a general rule, I've done basic stuff in other programs, then exported them in a form readable by Z-Brush for "superfine tweaking." However, you can start off in Z-brush, by using a "starting shape."

Basically, how it works is like this: you start off with a surface-based mesh, and you use "brushes" to deform the surface. You get a rough shape, then subdivide it into smaller and smaller meshes, each time tweaking the points making up the surface of that mesh with these "point displacement" based "brushes."

You can get EXTREMELY fine work. Rick Baker did an absolutely amazing "old man" sculpt in there once which remains, for me, the closest I've ever seen to something bridging the so-called "uncanny valley" (the term used to describe how we can always tell that a CGI person isn't REAL).

It has a lot of other features as well, including some wonderful color and texture painting features... and you can create a super-fine mesh and then export it out as textures which can be applied (as "bumpmaps" or "displacement maps" or whatever else) to be applied to the original shape.

Some of the big 3D-rendering packages are starting to implement Z-brush-like capabilities, but none of them have gotten there yet. I believe it's still the best for this sort of work, though these things do change over time.

 

[Mr. Cellophane]

^^ What he said!

Added a couple of ears. Probably the last update for tonight.

 

[Klaus]

very nice... I have some spaceship meshes a friend on dA made with ZBrush, looks like it'd be a blast.

 

[Captain Fine]

Impressive. Most impressive.

It really looks like Shran!

 

[Mr. Cellophane]

Thanks RegentWorf!

very nice... I have some spaceship meshes a friend on dA made with ZBrush, looks like it'd be a blast.

Thanks! I'd love to see some ships made in ZBrush! I've been thinking about modeling a ship of mine.

Just a couple of updates for today. I stuck a pair of basic antennae on him and built up some of the Andorian anatomy.

 

[Klaus]

very nice... I have some spaceship meshes a friend on dA made with ZBrush, looks like it'd be a blast.

Thanks! I'd love to see some ships made in ZBrush! I've been thinking about modeling a ship of mine.

Here are some pics made using his meshes:

http://tlbklaus.deviantart.com/art/Gargoyle-Klaus-version-39062297
http://tlbklaus.deviantart.com/art/Renegade-Flight-39989125
http://tlbklaus.deviantart.com/art/Renegade-Gargoyle-Patrol-40033826
http://tlbklaus.deviantart.com/art/The-Long-Way-Home-40224663
http://tlbklaus.deviantart.com/art/Alien-Moth-Klaus-version-39076682

 

[MadMan1701A]

This is looking great. With hair, this is going to be very convincing.

 

[Ziz]

In the end, what will really "sell" it will be the eyes and skin texture. Get those right and it won't matter if something else isn't 100%.

 

[Mr. Cellophane]

Pretty cool renders, Klaus!

Thanks, MadMan1701A!

Well, not much updated again today but I worked on the skin texture... :

... and the antennae a bit:

I plan on tackling the hair next... there's a new technique I want to try out, so that'll be fun.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

Wow! I am really enjoying seeing this evolve!

 

[Ziz]

Can you at least throw some eyes in there first?

 

[Mr. Cellophane]

Wow! I am really enjoying seeing this evolve!

Thanks!

Can you at least throw some eyes in there first?

Sure thing. Not perfect by any stretch, but it'll do for tonight.

 

[Ziz]

That'll do for now.

 

[Tom Hendricks]

Do you know if Zbrush is exportable to Lightwave? I model/texture and animate in Lightwave, seeing this makes me want to try.