MattD - Term 03

MattD 2020-04-24 21:45:03 UTC #1

Heres the start of my practice with ZBrush. I did a barrel following the video and did a male torso to practice my anatomy.

I also did three of each of the cloth assignments

Shellac-Belly 2020-04-24 22:05:32 UTC #2

Hi Matt,

Those clothing studies look great. I especially love the ones on the top left and right!

Zbrush looks awesome! I can't wait to start working in it. Do you think it's pretty easy to use or is it difficult?

MattD 2020-04-25 00:07:04 UTC #3

Thanks, I found a website that sells recreations of medieval and fantasy clothes and armor so I was really excited to use some of there stuff for this assignment.

ZBrush has a steep learning curve. Like really steep. It doesn't function the same way other 3D programs do and the layout can be pretty overwhelming. That said Marc does a good job of breaking it down and there are a lot of tutorials on youtube that I've found really helpful. There's really only about a dozen or so things that you really need to know to do about 90% of the work. My girlfriend has a job where she uses ZBrush a lot and she only uses a handful more things than I do.

TLDR: very hard for the first ten hours or so then you get pretty comfortable with it

Shellac-Belly 2020-04-25 19:08:07 UTC #4

Thanks for your reply!

Could I get the link to that site? It sounds like a great resource!

That's good to know about ZBrush! I have some Mudbox experience so I hope those skills are at least a little transferable.

MattD 2020-04-25 23:03:02 UTC #5

https://armstreet.com/ There's some really cool stuff here and if I had the money I would totally buy some of it.

My first experience with digital sculpting was with Mudbox too. That will definitely help when you get to sculpting. ZBrush has a very weird setup and that's been the hardest part for me

MattD 2020-04-28 19:30:28 UTC #6

Some anatomy studies. Not from the lesson itself but since the lesson covers the anatomy of the upper body I thought I would go through a few videos on the upper body by a Youtuber named moderndayjames. They've been on my watch later list for a while so this seemed like a good time to watch them

MattD 2020-05-06 23:43:28 UTC #7

Some trace overs for the anatomy assignment

MattD 2020-05-08 17:37:37 UTC #8

Feeling pretty good about these skeleton drawovers. I'm going to do some more to really solidify everything in my head

br00dley 2020-05-09 09:51:37 UTC #9

I like moderndayjames videos too, he basically transfers the information from Scott Robertson 'how to draw' book but for anatomy. A youtuber called Brother Baston has some good videos on how he does figures too, might be worth a watch for a different take. Great cloths studies as well by the way.

MattD 2020-05-11 17:37:50 UTC #10

Some more of the skeleton muscle draw overs. I think I'll do a few more and then do a few more cloth studies and some more ZBrush stuff

MattD 2020-05-11 17:38:04 UTC #11

Thanks for the recommendation of Brother Baston, the video on stylized proportions has jumped to the top of my watch list. That's one of my biggest weaknesses when it comes to figure drawing.

MattD 2020-05-14 17:29:16 UTC #12

A few more skeleton muscle draw overs.

Some gestures and a longer figure drawing. I used the gradient coloring method that Marc uses here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Zkh8KV2vbQ
I like how it came out. It took a lot more tweaking than I thought it would but I can see how it would save a lot of time on a more complicated piece.

Some gestures and an attempt at using the lasso fill tool to do a figure drawing. I also did a figure and then did a draw over for the muscles and a wireframe

dangras-almeida 2020-05-15 03:41:45 UTC #13

Wow, loved how the last figure turned out! Congratz!

MattD 2020-05-20 18:30:34 UTC #14

Some sketches and some quick torso studies. Still practicing using the gradient coloring method, the top two and the one on the bottom left all just used a single gradient. For the one on the bottom left, I used several gradients on top of each other to get some variation in the skin color then went over it just painting normally. I really like how it turned out, the gradients speed up the whole painting process and it really lets me focus on just the basic lighting. When I get to the coloring part I just focus on colors and doing some minor adjustments.
I've liked working this way so much that I already have a couple auto actions and shortcuts set up for it.

dangras-almeida 2020-05-21 04:43:25 UTC #15

Amazing work @MattD!

May I ask what brushes are you using for the line art and colors?

Cheers!

MattD 2020-05-21 17:40:47 UTC #16

Thanks!

The brush I use for my line work is a hard round brush with the size, opacity, and density ( I think that's called flow in Photoshop) set to pen pressure. I have the minimum opacity set to 70% and density to 45%. I have an eraser with the same settings just without the size variation.

About 80% of my shading is done with the hard and soft round brushes and erasers, with some minor adjustments to the opacity and flow settings. I also use a blending brush and a square brush that has the same settings as the hard round just with a square as the tip shape.

I also use a ton of masks, clipping layers, and gradient maps when I'm coloring. I do most of my coloring in correction layers (Effect Layers or Adjustment Layers in Photoshop). Gradient maps, levels, hue/saturation, color balance, etc. Then I'll paint over that.

I hope that wasn't too long.