United3dArtists Archive

Hey folks. Been a while. I don't normally do cartoony... which is why the idea excited me. Also, there's only 10 days left, which is good practice.
So... meet the 'Teacher'. I start sketching in Painter (minimal time spent sketching nowadays; bad tactic. - Oh wait; is there a time limit?)

Cool, I don't see time limit. Soo...
...then go right into zBrush (top of pic shows progression), do a quick basic model, then to generate good basic geometry I retopologize.
To be continued...

For a user not experienced in "Cartoony" this is a fantastic start!

Part of the charm in your original drawings has the eye sockets expanded horizontally and larger then the eye balls. I liked that cartoon look however I don't see it in your model.

Great to have you in this Challenge Dragoneye!!!

Is there still time left to enter this contest.
I am most defiantly interested as most of you know this is my area of 3D design.

Hey, thanks Steinie. Because I started with a cube, the stretching for the beak was making the geometry hard to push around for the eyes. And because zBrush's retopo feature has a 15,000 poly limit for the base mesh I couldn't expand on it. So shape refining is part 2.

jeffriog, part of the reason I jumped on this is BECause there are only 10 days left. Putting pressure on yourself, and in unfamiliar territory is good practice for the real world.
As an aside, you mentioned wanting to cartoon any member on here for your entry. 1. How abt doing You? Show us you. 2. Don't waste too much time 'looking to start'. 10 days doesn't give much space for delays.

I dont do well doing myself as I dont get real creative.
10 days is enough time.

Gotcha jeffroig.

So... took the finished half from zbrush, put in Modelside in tS, created the other half using Boolean subtract on the edge to make sure it's straight for a good middle edge (having first deleted a few edges. The less edges, the less things I need to manipulate).
Brought the obj back into zB and started refining using only the Move tool/brush (isolating each major area using masking).

Started refining the body to get a feel for the whole. Continued by making the various simple meshes in tS and appending them into the zBrush file. Now don't know how to continue. I want to practice with Blender (it'll be my first finished render) but due to time constraints may just paint it in zb.

Nice detail, shows the character of the bird.

This is looking very professional!!!! Love the detail and personality. You have some sculpting talent there!

Good luck with blender. This weekend I was trying it out too. Takes a bit to learn but it's a cool powerful program for sure.

Very nice Dragneye. Very nice indeed!

You are doing a great job in sculpting and I can see your imagination hard at work with this one.
Question: Where did you get the idea from?
It is always interesting to see how the character came to be.

Outstanding! Eager to see it with textures.

Thanks guys. Yeah, me too Finis; I have no idea how to finish this. Took the whole into Blender (abt 130k polys so far) but since I've never touched texturing, painting, UVing or rendering yet, that may be a tall order to get a handle on in like 3 days. Since it's just a pic, my inclination is to just polypaint it in zBrush, throw some nice lighting and be done. But ran into basics problem (every time I start to paint, it changes the material color instead of leaving it alone. Anybody with an answer?, as I've been working on writing a script and essays and my memory has been wavering lately. Can't find the answer in the tuts I've looked at).

Hey jeffroig. Thanks, and thank you for asking. I too am Fascinated by how an artist's mind moves. Many times when I ask, the crowd makes me feel like it's a bother, but, anyway. In this instance the whole thought process was, "Hmm; cartoon character... cartoon. (after sketch 2,)... Bird. My nickname was the Birdman but I haven't drawn one in ages. Let's try that". In this case, that was the whole of the thought process, and the whole of the sketching before I created anything in zb. I labeled the order I sketched.
And the rule of creating a relatively detailed sketch Before you even touch a polygon... is a Very good tip. I should remember it more Update: Oh dopey me. I had to unclick the 'Colorize' button for Every object under the Polypaint pallet for the color to stop changing. Or was it I had to click it on? Ohhh....jeez. Well it's one or the other.

(in reply to Draise from page 1)
Draise, the Only way I was able to enjoy, or even understand Blender was, to forget what I knew or liked from my past learnings, and take this program as if I am learning an interface from the beginning.
Hey, it even got me to start using keyboard shortcuts, which I hate to do. But, it does create better workflow efficiency.

So... after I retopologized the head to get better polygon flow, I sculpted until I got a look I liked. Used the head for inspiration/guide to what I wanted the body to look like.
(If it helps anyone)... when I don't have a detailed image to work off of, I tend to zone in on a small part of the whole almost to completion and use that as the guide for what the final look and amount of detail will be. In this case, it was the eye I zoned in on.

Then started to polypaint I was tempted to retopo the body because the feather outlines weren't good (normal procedure when the model will be animated) but again, since it was just a picture, I added a bunch of subdivision levels, and... voila! I can get any details I need with the polypaint. That, and with some post process painting in Painter...

Here's the actual pic I started with: (Preview Render in zBrush) Here's what you all saw:

Laying this to rest, this is what I was after with this pic.

'Spitball Science'

Perfect expression on his face for the situation.

This is one of your best works yet Dragneye!

Pythagorean theorem would have been funnier but that is just me....(just kidding)

Very cool creation indeed! It's great to see a design that could totally whip a pro's behind!

Thank you guys