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Z Brush F.A.Q (Last Updated: 2023 Sep 06 1:16 pm)
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Stage one. Starting from a Sphere. I will be using only the Move,Clay Buildup and Dam Standard brushes, along with the transpose tools. NO ALPHA MAPS.
Here I have the beginning of the torso blocked out. As you can see, I'm keeping the shapes very simple, choosing to concentrate only on the basic forms.
After I have my primary forms down, I review the model to make sure that everything is working the way I want in terms of proportion, scale and weight. If anything is off, I use the move brush to correct it. I try to give the model a natural relaxed T Pose to make the process of sculpting anatomical details easier. Once that's done, using the damstandard, clay buildup and smooth brushes, I start in on my secondary form.
After the secondary forms are done, I go in to create tertiary details like small wrinkles around the ankles, knees and elbows, wrinkles in the hand and neck and abdomen, etc. These are done using clay buildup primarily, though sometimes using masking and the move tool in conjunction with smoothing can work too. At this stage, I also add in veiny details using masking to draw out the veins and then using the clay build up to build them up and the smooth brush to soften them as they fade under the skin.
(unfortunately the screen grab of this stage got corrupted)
Finally, there's the detailing phase. Many people will just grab an alpha and go to town on the model but this can sometimes (often really) end up looking noisey and uninteresting. What I did instead, was, using the Damn Standard brush at low settings, I manually made criss crossing cuts into the model (think infinity symbol) The feeling I was going for was a rough but fleshy skin like chicken skin. To help with that look, I used the clay buildup and smooth brush to add in bumps. Sometimes I would also use the Dam Standard brush set to ZADD to make sharper, scale like bumps (at the wrist, along the sides of the obliques and the shins).
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It's important through all of this that your character reads well at a distance. You have to try to make sure that none of the stages destroys the work done on the stage before. You should be able to see the model's various stages based on distance from the camera. At a great distance you should only make out the primary forms, as you get closer you'll then see the secondary forms, closer still, the tertiary forms and then up close, the surface detailing. It should all work in conjunction with each other and not compete for attention.
Happy to do it. I should mention that along the way, I made changes as needed. Changing the forms on the back so that the lats look better, erasing and redoing a much softer detail pass on the chest to arm connection, etc. Don't treat your model as precious. Be ready and willing to make changes as needed.
Keep remembering things to tell you. So this was a method taught to me by Gio Nakpil to help understand creating good form language, the building blocks of any good sculpture. It's a method I like but not what I would use in production, as it's a little time consuming. However, it's good to do as practice when you have time, so that when working in production, where speed is important, your hands already have a feel for the right forms to make or being ready in case you need to make drastic changes without destroying the underlying forms.
Some other good practice:
Take a sphere and turn it into a cube in ZBrush using Dam_Standard, HPolish, Clay Buildup, Move and Smooth brushes only. Then take that cube and turn it back into a sphere. It's challenging but it can really help you in defining hard and soft forms when working in production.
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Here's stages of an alien creature from concept to final model.