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| My first piece using ZBrush |
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| First rough sketch of my next piece |
New tool
I got myself a shiny new sculpting tool in December.
I've been eyeing it for quite a long time now, and I finally decided it was time to have at it.
I'd been watching loads of online video tutorials just to get a really good idea of what it can do and how useful it might be.
It's a program for sculpting on your computer.
ZBrush.
The sky is the limit
It's pretty amazing.
You can work in all kinds of ways, try out all kinds of new things, and all without filling up your house with gazillions of clay sketches.
You can store them all on your computer instead.
When I've built up a nice little menagerie of critters, I intend to have lots of fun playing with them to see what other strange things may transpire.
So since I've had a whole lot of things banging around inside my noggin, but have been unable to make them into sculptures for space reasons, I'm going to probably go a bit nuts making loads of stuff that may or may not ever see the light of day.
Some of it will of course.
Just scratching
The learning curve is pretty huge, and there's people who use it professionally who still only feel they've scratched the surface.
I'm sure I'll start slowly, since I'm spending a lot of time trying to figure out why the thing I did with the tool just exactly the same as in the instructional video created completely unexpected results.
Puzzling slog
It's a bit like doing a twelve million piece jigsaw puzzle. You can only focus on the bit you're doing right now, but other areas you are as yet unaware of put what you are trying to accomplish into some perspective.
Or they would, if you could see them.
So lots more slog to get a feel for the lay of the land is in order.
Mostly fun slog. Sometimes frustrating slog. Hopefully rewarding slog.
Print your handiwork
Eventually, anything you decide to bring forth into the physical realm can be 3D printed or milled in foam if it's big.
Or routed with a CNC machine I imagine.
You can export your sculpture to be brought into being at any size that is capable of being printed, routed or milled, which pretty much covers anything you could possibly want.
I understand you can prep your printed/milled piece in a variety of ways before molding. Sanding and priming if it's a smooth or angular piece, or have it skinned in clay and do the final tooling old school instead, for instance.
I can feel some more Kickstarters coming on in my future...
Users
ZBrush seems to be very popular with the gaming crowd who are busy making ghouls and goblins of all varieties, but it's also used by concept car designers, illustrators (you can color the sculptures and output them as images to be tweaked further in photoshop), toy creators, and who knows who else.
I plan on adding myself to the growing list of users.
Handy
One of the pieces I have been wanting to make was a hand coming out of the wall holding one of my mice by the tail.
Probably Pugnacious, unless I make another mouse digitally just for fun.
I wanted a smoother style of hand, perhaps wearing a rubber glove, kind of 'putting out the trash' than I normally create texture wise, so that was the perfect jumping off point after a lot of hours of messing about with shapeless blobs to get a feel for the tools.
See what you think. Here are a few screen shots of various stages of progress, to fairly much finished (except for printing, molding, casting, and attaching the mouse by the tail betwixt finger and thumb of course)...
The method I employed pretty much follows my usual process of an armature if needed, slowly building up the forms anatomically, then final surface concerns. But not usually out of chocolate, or I'd never finish anything.
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| Hand armature made in ZBrush |
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| Hand armature made in ZBrush |
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| Hand armature made in ZBrush |
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| Building up anatomical forms of the hand, made in ZBrush |
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| Building up anatomical forms of the hand, made in ZBrush |
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| The icing on the cake - Folds added and overall finish smoothed out |
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| The icing on the cake - Folds added and overall finish smoothed out |
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| The icing on the cake - Folds added and overall finish smoothed out |
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| The icing on the cake - Folds added and overall finish smoothed out |
I'm working on my next piece right now. See if you can tell what it's going to be from the picture below...(yes it's a real creature, not a fantasy beast)
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| What might this be? Find out next time! |
SteveWorthingtonArt.com - Sculpture that loves you back
or my Etsy store, CritterVille
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