"Oranguthanos" - A Sample of Digital 3D Sculpting with ZBrush
My New Task
Hello, fellow Steemians. The tiger is back from the shadows again with a new post, and one that could, hopefully, lead to my posting with more regularity in here. I've been given a new task and it could well end up being my primary way of creating my artistic contributions at work, for the duration of the project.
To cut a long story short, I've been given a mandate to get up to speed on organic modeling and sculpting. My superiors gave me a month to re-familiarize myself with the process, and I am currently in my second week of learning. And, this blog will be my first post showcasing my long-dormant, and rusty 3D sculpting skills.
Sculpting 101
So, what is digital sculpting? It is a way of creating 3D models through a very specialized way that vastly differs from traditional 3D polygon modeling.
It is called sculpting because it literally resembles sculpting in the traditional sense, and it is done in a way that is best described as, drawing with clay in the air of the virtual world space in the viewport of the program.
If that sounds like fun, then you can bet your derriere that it is tons of fun, at least after you get past the headaches of learning the interface of this software that I will be using for it, most of the time.
The software I will be using is ZBrush, and it is made by company named, Pixologic.
Videos
Ask any 3D modeler you know about sculpting and they will tell you how difficult learning ZBrush is. The difficulty in learning it lies in the non-traditional design of its user interface. I can remember the first time I saw it back in 2003 and how I was pretty much blown away at how easy it makes it look easy to create organic shapes with it, particularly character and creatures heads, which were exactly what most ZBrush demo videos often show. And, that's exactly how one goes about learning it. But, like a lot of people at the time, I couldn't get into yet because of the damned interface. And now, seventeen years later, here I am using it and wishing I had persevered with it back then. If I had, then I'd probably be an expert with it by now. Hindsight is always 20/20.
This video shows the head of an ape-type creature and also the very first 3D model I've sculpted without giving up on it! Hurray! Anyway, I initially chose to sculpt an orangutan named Suzanne, who happens to be the mascot of the other 3D program I use, Blender.
I ended up creating a mash-up that looks like the unfortunate by-product of an unholy coupling between Suzanne and Thanos. My first effort was clearly intended to be cartoony, and satisfied with the way it turned, I stopped to have dinner, and hoping to get started on sculpting other things afterwards.
As you can see in this next video that I had more fun with the model, and decided to turn it from its cartoony incarnation to a realistic one. I liked so much how it turned that I thought of posting it here, as a way to introduce you to what will become my main way of creating 3D models for work, and also for blogging about on here. Feast your eyes on some more screenshots below.
Screenshots
I'm glad I was able to get into this software again without the difficulty I've experienced with it seventeen years ago. But then, being paid to do something difficult certainly makes it a bit easier.
And since this a mandated task, I will be sculpting things everyday. Another good thing is that I own everything I create with it, during the period I've been given to learn the software.
That means I am free to post them here. Our recent Internet connection upgrade to a fiber optic plan of 15 MBps is certainly going to help me a lot with all the sculpting timelapse video uploads I will be doing for my future blog posts.
It's now five in the morning. Time for me to get some shuteye.
So, that's all for now, folks. Thank you for reading, and I hope you found this post entertaining, or even helpful in some way. God Bless you all, and have a nice day.
eSteem Surfer, ZBrush, and GIMP.
Really cool sculpt of OranguThanos :D Though the back story about how you came up with the blend between orang utan and thanos is quite funny :D
Love the stages you showed here, and I always admire 3D artists ! I have no idea or concepts about how you do the things you do, even after I watch videos and see progress shots, but I think there's something magical about your craft :D
Congrats for the curie vote as well :)
Thanks, mate! Glad you loved it. The idea for the back story came from a sudden bout of cheekiness that momentarily hijacked my demented mind, in the midst of my sculpting session.
And I couldn't resist the temptation to add it here and spice up the blog a bit with some naughty humour.
Anyway, I've just remembered that ZBrush comes with a built-in screen recorder tool to record full motion or time lapse videos of the sculpting session. Check out the little demo I made below. That's how I will be presenting my next sculpt session blogs. 🙂
Great stuff! What is the advantage of using ZBrush over Blender?
Thank you for appreciating my post. I had lots of fun making it. Sculpting is a joy to do, even in Blender, where I practiced a lot before jumping back into re-learning ZBrush.
And to answer your question, ZBrush was built from the ground up to be a sculpting and painting app, and is highly optimized for extremely-high polygon work.
It's not uncommon to hear of artists say their sculpts have 10 million polys, or even higher. As for Blender, once I get to the million mark, it starts to slow down, sometimes even crashing. But I know they are fixing it in 2.80. We'll see when the final gets released. 🙂
Appreciate your explanation. For me, the GNU GPL is more of a manifesto than a copyright . 😎
By sculpting this Oranguthanos, not only you have created a funny and creative sculpture but also figure out that Thanos is the descendant of Suzanne and that Suzanne is from Titan. XD
I've been wanting to get ZBrush, among the other digital art packages for 3d modelling workflow (Substance Painter, Marmoset, and maybe Houdini too if I ever want to start learning animation) and I'm ready to learn it no matter how difficult it may be because I'm sure it'll be worth it
I've done a lot of reasearch and damn if it isn't one ridiculously powerful sculpting software.
I like your Oranguthanos sculpture by the way. When I saw the thumbnail I knew I've seen that one-of-a-kind purple chin before, but it looked a little different. Turns out this is a really interesting post about a really entertaining piece of art. Great work on this! Looking forward to seeing your other works, fellow 3d artist (＾ω＾)
Thank you! I'm glad you liked it. This Thanos and Suzanne thing is a joke my friends and I always make something out of, due to the humongous chins of both characters. 😀
Anyway, you should really get into ZBrush. Anybody who is serious about getting a job in the big studios should have ZBrush skills in their arsenal.
45-day trial versions of it have been available for some time now, and the ZClassroom videos are some of the best free learning assets online.
I've just found out that Zbrush has its own built-in screen recording tool for making full motion or timelapse videos of our sculpting sessions. And that's what I am learning right now, so I can make better videos to post here soon. 🙂
Hello!
This post has been manually curated, resteemed
and gifted with some virtually delicious cake
from the @helpiecake curation team!
Much love to you from all of us at @helpie!
Keep up the great work!
omg thats some really awesome sculpting work. The angry expression of the ape is coming right outta my phone, so neat
Manually curated by @vibesforlife.
Thank you! Yes, I intended it to look intimidating, and I guess I've succeeded. 😀
it's really amazing what technology can do nowadays !! it is certain that he had to wait a long time to have fun with this program !! but exactly what job do you do?
in any case, congratulations and thanks for sharing
Thank you for your appreciation. And my job is in animation. I am an animator and a modeler. 🙂
you're lucky, I understand that for you this is also a passion !! work and love together, a success !!
Come to think of it, Thanos does hold a bit of resemblance to a large primate. I wonder if this was intentional on the part of Marvel. It could be the animators worked out much as you have here. Nice work:)
Thank you. And that's what I thought too when I first saw him, a gigantic heartless purple gorilla. 🙂
I was so very happy when sculpting became a thing XD I mostly do characters and I don't like edge modelling x_x but that's how I made my Blender bases because that's what I had to work with at the time. I sculpt my characters out of the bases now though which makes everything so much easier XD
I hate retopo but that's another story, and in fairness I don't hate retopo nearly as much as I hate rigging
I kind of wish I hadn't stopped pirating software all those years ago, as then I would have pirated ZBrush to learn how to use it. But as I was not being a pirate then, and ZBrush refused to have a trial version (props for self-confidence?) and instead tried to pass off Sculptris as the "introduction" thing (I've used Sculptris before Pixologic snapped it up and froze it, and in fact introduced other people including my children to it as an easy and actually pleasant way of dipping your toes into 3d, but it's exactly nothing like ZBrush) so I ended up with 3d Coat instead (which is fine because its retopo tools are magical and it does everything else I need it to do except match Blender's scale which is making my current painting job difficult). Probably would have helped immensely if I actually wanted an industry job though.
Oranguthanos! XD He(?)'s looking good :)
The Blender monkey looks more like a chimp to me
And yay for having an easier time with the software, perhaps you just needed all your current experience as now you're only learning the program rather than trying to learn the program while you're also learning 3d?
Thanks, bro. I felt the same way back in 2003 when I saw a demo of ZBrush that came from a magazine freebie CD. I was blown away by the playback of a head sculpting demo and how it made it seem so easy to create human head, as opposed to the usual way of box and edge modeling.
But it was difficult to get into as I didn't have a graphics tablet yet at the time, and also, it was a skill that was not needed at work.
Years later I also discovered Sculptris around the time it had been snapped up by Pixologic. Still, sculpting was a no-go for me then. Then in 2015 I decided to try sculpting again, but with Blender, and I immediately got hooked.
Sculpting with clay was one of my hobbies when I was younger, and that's why it picking up its digital counterpart seemed so easy for me. And the only thing that really got into the way of my learning ZBrush was its freaky interface.
I really had to force myself to watch the beginner videos at ZClassroom over and over again until the necessary info got hammered into my head. And, yeah, being an experienced 3D artist helped a lot too.
Oh, btw, there is no need to pirate it if you want to try it out. Pixologic has been offering 45-day trial versions since 2016. In the office we have 10 seats that are underutilized, and that's why our boss wants some of us to get up to speed on it.
And if I ever get so good at using it that I become a famous artist working in a big studio somewhere, it's because of Thanos and Blender. I will let Ton Roosendaal know about it. LOL! I guess a proper time lapse sculpting video is in order. 😀
Cheers!
Ahh see when I was investigating ZBrush it was early 2000s (can't remember exact year, just remember it was when I was in my old house and I know when I moved into my current house).
That's as good an excuse as any for making a proper timelapse sculpting video, but I don't think anyone needs an excuse to make one of those beyond "felt like it" ;D
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