Category: Creature

I’m overall happy with my painting and think the strongest parts are the colours, lighting and atmosphere. what I would do differently next time is give the creature a more dynamic pose and make the composition more dynamic. I did put the camera at a low angle looking up at the creature but it didn’t have much of an effect. I also had to replace the tail as it wasn’t reading well and the overall image looks flat as the creature isn’t crossing over into the foreground or background. although I reviewed the design and exaggerated it I think I still could have made it more interesting as the silhouette remained similar throughout. I also think I should have tried experimenting with different colours for the creature and thought more about how it would interact with the environment and depict that, rather than have it standing there.

I found a more effective approach to the paint over was to start in black and white so I could decide on the values and composition. it also made the photo bashing easier. I then added gradient maps and colour layers to add colour.

Feedback

the feedback I received was to increase the contrast between the creature and the background by adding a multiply layer on the creature, enhancing the rays of light in the background and making the rim light stronger. I also lightened some of the darkest values so the background wasn’t drawing so much attention.

Here I continue working into the textures and lighting. I also altered the tail to make it look more like it was wrapping around the pillar.

I found the lighting coming from the left didn’t look natural so I added some planes to block the light from shining through the columns which gave a better sense of depth into the temple. My first couple tries at photobashing have ended up looking muddy and unnatural. I think I will revisit the creature and adjust the colours as they don’t work well together. I might try doing some renders without the textures/ background and practicing my photo bashing and painting on those before moving on to one with a background if I have time.

I used the Arnold renderer in maya to render my image for painting over. I have given it a key light, a fill light and a rim light. I have put the camera at a low angle looking up at the creature and framed it with the columns, using leading lines to direct the viewers eyes towards its head (the focal point.) I am planning to paint in the atmospheric details and background textures.

I decided to uv unwrap in zbrush and keep a relatively high poly model so I can texture it in substance painter. I ran into some issues when trying to unwrap my model because of the topology which I fixed by filling in holes, using inflate brush to prevent parts from being too thin and then using z remesher in stages rather than trying to do it all at once.

I then used uv master to unwrap the separate meshes and projected and divided it onto the original mesh until no detail was lost.

then I was able to export them as objs and texture them in substance painter. When adding these textures into maya I also had to find some workarounds for the metallic texture not working which I solved by going into the hyper shader and connecting the out colour to metallic.

lighting and materials in Zbrush

Array mesh, cloth modifier, posing mesh and decimation for exporting

I looked into some more interesting features of zbrush including simulating cloth/ dynamics, array mesh, decimation master and transpose master.

I used array mesh for the tail club of my creature and, although decimation master was very useful it decreased the detail of my model too much for painting over in substance painter and lost some of the details in the face as I merged it with some of the body.

I also experimented with lighting and adding materials within zbrush.

To sculpt the creature i made a base by using z spheres and then appending shapes like circles to block out a base. I then combined them all and turned on dynamesh. I modelled parts separately such as the feet, paws and head as it was easier to break it down that way.

I made a custom alpha in photoshop which I made 3d as an insert mesh for the repeating fur pattern.
I found it hard to balance detail with the resolution while using dynamesh.

the main feedback on my creature that I received was that its shilouette was too simple and could be exaggerated. To do this I took a screenshot of the model in zbrush and opened it in photoshop where I could draw over it. I also tried to exaggerate and add features to enhance the shillouette. I gave it jagged edges for a threatening appearance and made the shoulders more bulky with giant horns wrapping around them to make it look heavier and more suited to battle

Anatomy study

I looked at the skeletons of various animals to get an idea of how my creatures bones would be made up. The main animals I drew inspiration from are bears and pangolins. I took the bears bulky front limbs and combined it with the pangolins long spine and short hind limbs to make a rough skeleton of my creature that I could draw over. For anatomy references I used the book Animal Anatomy for Artists by Eliot Goldfinger.

Early attempts

zspheres were very useful for quickly adjusting the proportions and posture of my creature when still in the first stages. I practiced this by posing some models of animals from Zzoo. Zspheres were also useful for creating insert meshes. I made a couple of insert meshes starting in photoshop drawing out the shape and depth using a black and white gradient. I then made it into an alpha and chose make 3d. I found this useful for making scales and ear shapes. It would also be useful for repeating patterns as you can make it into a curve.

some of my early attempts at modelling the creature where I was still at an experimental stage and figuring out the design.

In one of our first workshops we learned the basics of zbrush such as duplicate and flip, using the brushes, extract tool, masking, appending other tools, and using Dynamesh. Once I got used to navigating and finding tools within the menus it was fun to experiment with the different brushes when modelling a head. I also found it useful to use other peoples models on sketchfab as a 3d reference.