Zbrush Personal Project (Valzythe Character Creation)

Part 2

After the Maya project it was time to go back to my un-finished Zbrush project. This was a project I was thoroughly enjoying and was eager to delve back into. I was especially eager to improve my digital painting skills and efficiency, make a professional design process and continue to learn the sculpting software after so long of maya modelling. I would also like to practise taking work between the two so I can export a sculpt as a low poly model in maya and animate it/ drop it into a game engine. This was where I last left off the project. (with a new more textured background and better presentation) 

From this it was time to create a value study which would eventually lead onto a model sheet and then the sculpting begins. I've been trying to adopt a new style for my iteration process to gain some more Photoshop and digital painting skills. I also would like this character to follow a very Dark Souls-esque look as these concepts where my inspiration from the start. I started with a very rough value, just block colours of dark and light to show where parts would be and give a sense of light direction. Then I worked over this by shading over it and erasing into it until I ended up with the final value. From this I will make a model sheet so I can better understand all angles of my character for the sculpting process.  

Before Starting...

SO, before I get into Zbrush for my sculpt of this character I need to re-kindle the knowledge learnt throughout BA2. I decided to do a real simple test to adapt myself to the programme navigation and tools again. I took a 2D game, 'The Binding Of Isaac' and chose a creature I could see a nice, simple 3D design being possible. I used a few sub tools, poly groups and a mixture of brushes. I also used the poly paint function to better understand the materials part of Zbrush. Although for my character I will un-wrapping the UV and painting it in Photoshop as I will be able to create a better painted surface with Photoshops software. I picked it up again fairly easily and it took me no time at all to create this 3D creature. I will do some more hard surface and clothing tests before I begin work on the final sculpt and slowly get my skills to a more advanced level. 

Time to get on with some 3D work. 

With Zbrush all familiarised again It was time to start getting the base skeleton down of, what would become, my character.  I started by using the Zsphere function we used back on the 7 Virtues project to produce a rough stick man as a start point. I then turned it into a mesh skin ready to be sculpted on. I began fleshing out the skeleton, trying to keep my anatomy correct and get a good feel of human muscles. 

Alongside the sculpting element I wanted to try making the base mesh of any hard surfaced elements, such as the helmet and general armour elements in Autodesk Maya. Transferring meshes between maya and zbrush and back is something I've wanted to be able to do effectively ever since my first Zbrush project, I shall use this project as a learning opportunity to develop these skills. I went a-head and made the base mesh for my mask/helmet design in Maya, making sure to keep it all in quads and at not too high a poly count. 

With that successfully made I took it over to my model in zbrush to test if it: A. worked in Zbrush and B. Fitted on the zbrush body in a way that made sense. I'd also continued to flesh out my zbrush body a bit more and added a rough idea of muscles so I could work a nice skin over the body and/or get the clothes laying upon the body correctly. Anatomy and human muscles are something I've never really looked into enough and is another element I want to focus on and hopefully be something I can gain from this personal project. 

Next I duplicated the body with the muscles on and sculpted over it/smoothed it down to give the illusion of skin over the same muscles. I tweaked it quite a bit and then added some details to the face/head to give me some rough details to build a face onto (not as though it's needed given it's secluded behind the mask). I'll need to pose the body into a better position as the posture is a bit wrong right now and it doesn't quite look like he'd be able to stand like that steadily. 

When attempting to pose this model I realised there where quite a few issues with the models forms and the structure of it. Researching more into the male human form is a very vital part of getting my male character right, After all it's the foundation which shapes every male character. I think I may have to take a break from the character creation process until I've done sufficient anatomy studies and have enough research together to get this right. This project has already taken far longer than anticipated however it's more about the personal learning experience throughout for me than it is getting a finished product. 

Zbrush Personal Project (Valzythe Character Creation)

So...Project Hand In. Now what? 

I really enjoyed using Zbrush and furthered my skills in the program an awful lot throughout the project, However my final outcome was something very crazy and I figured it'd be more a challenge to produce a person with very realistic elements. So I set myself the task of creating a 'super realistic' character. 

Personal Project.

I've always had a personal avatar as my 'on line identity' since I first started designing armours. This was known as Vozzlak but has been changed over the years to Valzythe. For this project I want to design a super realistic version of this Personal Character to be 3D modelled and used to re-claim some on line presence with a, now dead, game design name. 

Step 1.

I've had a rough idea of a armour design I wanted to create for a while now so I went to put these ideas on paper but I soon realised my anatomy and proportions aren't so great from the top of my head and I don't want to keep using on line templates for my designs. I sat down on line and I studied a bit of proportions and Anatomy and I done myself a reference page in my sketch book. Here's my outcome (it's rather rough and not 100% but it'll greatly help me in the future.)

Research Time. 

After a trip to Cambridge and the Fitzwilliam museum I found out a lot more about the way armour plating works and that medieval warfare was far more elaborate then I had thought. I knew after seeing such great wonders that I wanted to include the realisticness (Making up words now) of all the plates and I also really liked all the hinges, straps and buckles all over the armours. I'd also been playing dark souls and really appreciated the realism of the armour in that game, it added a feel to your character not many fantasy games have. I looked on line at some armour designs and (as not allowed to take photos in the Fitzwilliam) I used what I could remember/ learnt from the Items in the museum.

Also Some (beautiful) Dark Souls 2 Concept Art. 

 The Ideas Behind The Design. (Brief History)

I first started getting really into character design years ago and I've had, for almost as many years as I've been designing properly (on flash), a personal avatar. This started out as 'Vozzlak' and never really had a unique look until I started creating a personal look to me. I've always liked the assassin types and magic (particularly the blink spell) so I took the 'spellcloak' idea from 'Kingdoms Of Amular, The Reckoning' and applied that class to my own, personal character. Below is a design history of 'Vozzlak'. 

First Vozzlak Concepts (Un-themed)

First Ever Flash Drawing. (Vozzlak Concept 01)

Next was an animation. (Vozzlak Concept 02)

The Start of Themed 'Vozzlak'. 

Started getting towards a settled design. (Vozzlak Concept 03, never finished)

Developed on this design in a new style. This was a design for the website of a game I was working on, the end image was used as my profile picture for posting design updates on the thread. The website was completely designed by me but I didn't see the point in paying for it when it was up for renew-ell so unfortunately it is now gone. (Vozzlak Concept 04, Again...never finished.)

'Vozzlak' now 'Valzythe'!?!

I'd had a good run with flash and learnt pretty much all I could from the program. I knew I wanted to get somewhere so wanted more diversity. I'd seen some very nice concept art so I thought I'd give photoshop painting a go as I knew this would come in handy. I also wanted to get out of 2D games and into 3D games for a more secure future and just to know as much as possible. The change of styles and new direction also brought about the change of Vozzlak. I decided A: the name was too friendly and B: I hadn't been doing any armour designs for a while (blame full time work) so my on line identity had pretty much disappeared. This was a chance for me to come back to designing with a new outlook, direction and finally a new (improved) On line Identity. And so the birth of 'Valzythe'! I done a new design in the style of 'Fable 2'.

(Valzythe Concept 01) Oh, Look. Once again...it's un-finished.))

And Another design, this one took influence from 'Torchlight 2' and I tried to include that style in my sketches. I also concentrated on a dagger design that I could use for Valzythe throughout the years. I believe this dagger design will stick, obviously there'll be a few variants as time goes on the dagger will 'Evolve'.

(Valzythe Concept 02, Sketches)

Designing, Finally. 

So with my proportions improved and head filled to bursting with studies and ideas I cracked on with the design. The design got more and more added as I sketched it out in my sketchbook and this is my finally rough sketch. (You may notice random doodles round the edge of some details and parts I wanted to see more of or correct how they'd work in 3D. )

Digital Design Process.

Once the Sketch was done it was time to start the design on Photoshop. I chose to put him in a slightly more dynamic pose and have been improving the proportions of my character. I will eventually have a finished model sheet for me to then sculpt in Zbrush. Here's the rough digital sketch so far. 

I'll be posting progress as I go more for this personal project as I want people to see the design processes I went through and so I can refer back to it whenever. 

Progress.

I added some more details in the digital painting then the hand sketch. I decided to add a sword to the character and integrated a strapped on sheath into the original belt design. I also added a different design for the random trinkets hanging off below the fur covered shoulder and basically tried to make everything as realistic as possible in the way it's all held together. I also done a concept for a optional helm the character can wear and showed how the upper part of the boots attach and detach to my character. I'm really happy with my progress and am feeling ambitious about what's to come. 

After briefly showing how the leg armour held together I thought It'd be best to show how the gauntlet worked as the forearm piece of it looks unusual in the way it stays on. I also liked the idea of designing some of the pieces of armour in separate parts as it'll help my understanding for the modelling process.

Sometimes, less is more.

I looked back at my design and decided it was almost 'cluttered' with information and details and there was almost too much going on for it to be a clean final design. I removed a lot of the details and I decided the random design around the 'V' buckles was unnecessary and took away from the main 'V' theme. The belt is far less a clutter and allows more clear components and the 'V' to stand out. I also wanted to make the fabric look like woven cloth, the metal to be nicely tarnished and to focus on surface textures so I removed many of the etchings, as they where too large anyway. This allows me to focus more on the texture detail within the armour and not have so much pointless detail get in the way. 

Further Development. 

I really liked the look of the helm so I decided to place the helm on the design and see what it would look like. I was pretty happy with the results but I've always been a fan of that emotionless, faceless mask look and it's something that has been persistent throughout all my Vozzlak/Valzythe designs. Due to this I decided to remove the nose piece and keep it a straight mask, the main focus of the design is a hood and mask look but within a single helm. I will however look into some nice texturing and maybe some battle damage/wear into the mask along with the rest of the armour. 

A Few Variations Later... (Belts!)

I decided there was still too much clutter in the belts, they looked messy and I didn't like that (not one bit). So I decided to try out a few variants in belt designs. Already having done a few variants on this character to start with I'm hoping this will be the final piece that I feel needs adjusting. I took the original design (left) and started cleaning it up, first with a design themed similar to the belt and then with something a bit more realistic and practical. I also added some throwing daggers to the design I was most happy with.

I think I'm all settled on the final belt design and I should really get on with this before I end up having to run this side project along too much set project work. For the model sheet I shall make the belt ring slightly thicker though. 

"At Last"

Zbrush Practise

Zspheres

Before I started on this project I done a few tests using the zsphere function in zbrush. I sculpted them a little, but most of them are un-complete. The primary function of this practise was to produce something that could be sculpted on to easily produce what I was after more than coming up with a final model. I started with something a little crazy and un-planned, the idea was to just add spheres and see what happens. My next one I had a character in my head, I thought could be easily made via zspheres, and wanted to see if I could re-produce it. I then went on to a character with weird proportions and using subtools of Zspheres to add winding vines and details on-top of it. Then finally I wanted something a bit challenging so tried to scuplt something with several arms. This process really allowed me to learn a lot about zbrush and how zspheres can be used to easily create a rough character for you to work on. 

Spider Test. 

Nights Test. 

Golem Test.

Demon Test.

BA2 & BA5: Digital Sculpture. Character Design Brief: Seven Virtues

The Seven Virtues. 

1. Chastity (Castitas)

Purity,knowledge,honesty,wisdom. Vice: Lust.

2. Temperance (Temperantia) 

Self control,justice,honour,abstention. Vice: Gluttony.

3. Charity (Caritas)

 Will,benevolence,generosity,sacrifice. Vice: Greed.

4. Diligence (Industria)

 Persistence,effort, ethics,rectitude. Vice: Sloth.

5. Patience (Patientia)

 Peace,mercy,ahimsa,sufferance. Vice: Wrath.

6. Kindness (Humanitas)

 Satisfaction,loyalty,compassion,integrity. Vice: Envy.

7. Humility (Humilitas)

 Bravery,modesty,reverence,altruism. Vice: Pride.

Here are the seven virtues and the traits for each of them. After looking at each Virtue and the traits I'd have to embody within my character I decided to personify Temperance as it has the more sublime traits I believed would be a challenge to portray. 

Temperance.

Wikipedias' definition. 

Temperance is the espousal of moderation, marked by personal restraint. It has been studied by religious thinkers, philosophers, and more recently, psychologists, particularly in the positive psychology movement. Upheld as a virtue throughout time and across cultures, it was one of the cardinal virtues in Greek philosophy, being believed that no virtue could be sustained in the face of inability to control oneself, if the virtue was opposed to some desire, and was subsequently incorporated in the Catholic catechism's Seven heavenly virtues. It is also one of the six main categories of the VIA character strengths. Temperance is generally defined by control over excess, so that it has many such classes, such as abstinence, chastity, modesty, humility,prudence, self-regulation, forgiveness and mercy; each of these involves restraining some impulse, such as sexual desire, vanity, or anger.

Representation of temperance (painted wood sculpture) dated 1683

Temperance in the Tarot.

A selection of Temperance portrayals within Tarot Cards. I've always found Tarot cards fascinating in the way they personify an event or a single word. Be it death or jealousy, any human trait can be embodied within an image in Tarot Cards.

Initial Ideas.

Below is a list of Ideas I've gathered to portray within my character and to, maybe, further research.

Temperance Character Traits.

·          No Gender…shows sexual abstinence. An empty shell.

·         Honour, Honour of the sword. An Honour Sword?

·         Justice, Stereotypical symbol: Scales.

·         Self-Control, calm statuesque character.

·         Calm face all the time.

·         Tarot shows cups, passing of water between cups. Shows purity and balance, as the         scales do. Another sign of justice.

·         Judge Wig, wore by people who apply justice.

·         Armour with robes, god-like.

·         Justice/Abstinence through religion??

·         Chains, bound by abstinence and Chains of Justice.

·         Statue of liberty, symbol of Justice and Law.

·         Personal restraint.

·         Greek philosophy?

Photo references/Research

For the first few photos I looked through my list and gathered images of some of the props and ideas I'd had.

The Sword Image below is a sword from the film and book trilogy 'Sword of Honour' which was about a soldiers experience during world war 2. For my sword however I would keep the blade sheathed as it is a virtue and I want it to look non-aggressive and calm.

Next I looked at game concepts of Gods and Judges (more to come)

Below are the gods from Guild wars 2, I liked how each one is a portrayal of its traits and powers.

Next I looked at the judges from Final Fantasy 12. The judges in this are heavily clad in Armour which was something I wanted my design to have to show no humanity, an empty un-bias shell. I also like the decorative, divine like design within there armour. Another thing that 

brought me to look at this was the obvious connection of Judges.

Then I got some images of more divine, heavenly artwork. This was to follow on from the very obvious religion theme across the virtues.

After looking at these it started me thinking about other religious orientated fantasy characters. I thought to look at 'Paladans' (a class in many fantasy genres of games). Paladans are  warriors to the gods, they use heavenly powers of the divine and light to battle what they consider the 'forces of evil and darkness.'  I felt this applied well to the virtues as they're the counters to the 7 sins.

Paladans

I looked at various portrayals of Paladans to see whether I could use any concepts within my design of Temperance.

Alchemy Silhouettes.

I wanted to try out Alchemy as was a new program to me and I figured it would be a quick way to create unique and wild silhouettes. For these I turned on Mirror, opacity and I also turned on blindness so the silhouettes where completely un-influenced by me. This allowed me to create shapes and ideas I would've never came up with by myself for challenging and interesting designs.

For the last 2 I turned off the mirror function as I thought trying something less symmetrical would come up with new results.

Alchemy proved to be a very efficient way of coming up with some really interesting Ideas for a character. The blindness function really helped make it more a creative process rather than a strategic silhouetting. 

Alchemy Values

I chose a few of my favourite Alchemy silhouettes to start adding some value and roughly outline any props and details.

Value 01

Value02

Value03

I'm relatively happy with the outcomes, however they're all a little too sinister for the image I want to portray within Temperance. I also need to add legs to all of them as the way my alchemy silhouettes came out rendered my designs legless. Value 2 and 3 are my preferred ones, next I'll look into designing armour, props and accessories to make it more Temperance themed and a less sinister apparel. I'm thinking of adding masks to cover the strange, non-gendered being beneath. I was told the Ideas I've been having and have been adding within my values resembled influences from the enemies within the game 'Bayonetta.'

Bayonetta 

After being told my ideas could take influence from Bayonetta I decided to research into the game. I'd never seen anything from Bayonetta and after researching the enemies I realised this mutated being beneath an angelic shell could really influence my work. Below I found a boss design I liked and discovered it was also called 'Temperantia' (the Latin of Temperance).

Life Drawings (Part one)

Photoshop Rough Silhouettes. 

I done another few scribbles in Photoshop to form loose silhouettes. These where a bit less blind to me and came out with much more similar results, which I felt left me with not much in the way of unique, imaginative results. As such I chose to value the most jagged one with lots of access lines as I thought it could become the more interesting result. 

Photoshop Values

Here's the silhouette I chose. It took me a lot of imagination to think of what could go where within the scribble and it made it a very fun challenge to value. 

The jug-like water feature on the back and the chains I wanted to include within my character reminded me of a summons (esper) from the game 'final fantasy 12' called Famfrit. This summon is the water element characterised, within the game its said it's a creation by the 'Judges' I studied earlier and it carries a large jug on a chain upon it's shoulder as well as being heavily armoured and ornate. The large jug can be associated with the cups, a very large part of Temperance within religion and Tarot. 

Famfrit Study. 

Life Drawings (part 2)

After lothars' outside drawing session of studying the water I decided to do some of my own life drawings whilst out and about. I done a very quick sketch ( had to be quick as sun was almost gone and train was moving..a lot) of a sunset outside the train window on my way to Cambridge for valentines weekend. Whilst at Cambridge I done another quick sketch of a dagger from the Fitzwilliam museum. The Fitzwilliam has some really interesting medieval warfare items, it's a very good place to study interesting props and armours. 

STOP! C-S Time. (Can't touch this)

I done a rough MindMap to show which roles effect each other, mainly based around the 3D modellers job. I really learnt a lot about how roles work within industry during my research, I had no knowledge about industry before and had no idea about how many 'cogs' made up the 'game creating machine' (metaphor). Here's the MindMap all ready to present in a CS lecture for Sharon. 

Accessory and Prop Studies.

I took my favourite value study and worked on some more Temperance appropriate armour pieces and accessories. I took the cup theme, the most prominent feature of Temperance, and applied to pieces of my character. 

I wanted a more heavenly mask for my character so I took what I'd studied from Bayonetta and applied it to a mask. I added etched stitching to show that behind the mask the creature is a silent and controlled being. I then decided to make a gully down the face and I'll have water flowing from the top of the horns down and into the cup in his hands. I also added a water feature to the shoulder-piece, this was to try to show the passing of water between cups.

Final (rough) Value

I took the accessories and put them on my favourite value. I'm much happier with the feel of this then the original value. It's more a calm presence and the flow of water and cups theme I think makes it a bit more noticeable as temperance.

Finished Temperance Design.

After the values where all sorted, I jumped into Zbrush and started having a play around with concepts to see what I could realistically achieve within the program. I found out I didn't have to make my design as simple as I originally thought so re-designed my virtue a little. This is a sketch of my final Design. 

I tried to heavily outlined the cup theme within my design, which was a big part of Temperance in the Tarot. I've added chains to the cup to show being chained by self control, the cup is almost this hollow creatures life-force and the water that flows through it  and around the being is its blood. He has very little stumpy legs similar to Famfrit and is very top heavy, I've done this to show the beings great self control in balance. The very straight face Indicates inner piece and no mouth shows silence, another self controlling trait. I added some etchings on the armour for that divine, virtuous look, and I tried to create the same feel with the cloth in the way it now flows. I made the horns of the being a less harsh, more rounded shape and generally rounded up the whole character to create a less violent outcome. I haven't added the water to the design as that's something I'd add at the end of the sculpt over it and don't want the water to take away the details beneath the water or get in the way of the sculpt itself.

Colour Studies. 

Now I've settled on a final design I decided to test out some colour options and a range of themes. I tried to use some complementary colours in my designs and looked at colours based off paladins and crusaders. I wanted to use very 'good' and virtuous colours for the outfits. But a more 'monstrous' colour scheme for the horns and underneath of armour. I also wanted to include colours associated with water. 

Model Sheet.
From my colour studies my favourite colour scheme was the gold and blue look, however I liked the idea of incorporating the purple trims and platinum colours within my final. I pieced together the first and second study and here's what I came out with. 

ZSpheres!!

Started sculpting out the basic shape of my character using the zsphere function.

Sculpt01.

I then started the sculpting process in Zbrush. This is the outcome (Shame I had no process pictures but my undo history got lost somewhere along the way.)

I'm pretty happy with my outcome however I don't like the cape on the back and I feel I should add some extra details within the model, particularly the shoulder plates and the belt. I think I'll try to do a less covering back design using the chain theme and maybe some little cages to show control and inner captivity within the being. 

Sculpt02.

Thankfully I had enough time to carry on making adjustments to my sculpt so I made adjustments to the issues I had with Sculpt01. I added a satchel to the belt and re-done the back design. I also added some gems socketed into the shoulder plates and a few extra engravings and details. I also painted and assigned materials to my design. This is pretty much my final outcome now, All I would like to add is a base and the water is a necessity. 

Final outcome In Statue Form. 

After going to the Fitzwilliam museum and studying the marbel statues I really liked the way they looked and thought it'd be interesting to have my model in a statue form. Below is a picture I took from the museum of a very clean statue which was the look I tried to achieve in mine. 

I added the final touches and am really happy with my outcome. Having never used Zbrush before or having any real knowledge of 3D it was a real experience and a lot of fun learning all the tools and producing a finalised 3D model.

Final Outcome Video.

 I set up some lighting and created a transparent render on the water and here's the finish product. This is my turntable of the model, all rendered.