Semester 3 Week 3

This week was heavily focused on learning the digital sculpting software ZBrush, for myself and a few other students. It has quite a learning curve. It was initially designed for 2D art, so there are a half-dozen hurdles to get over to begin sculpting. After starting and restarting the program repeatedly, I got the hang of the "Init ZBrush" button, edit mode, tools, polymeshes, and file saving. Then came the actual sculpture (the hard part). The first asset I sculpted was a spooky, worn stuffed bunny. It didn't take too long to get the rough shape. The subject is nice and round, so there's not much particularly challenging about it. I tried to make it appear as though each fabric section between seams would make sense; they could be flattened.

I tried to do seam details in ZBrush rather than Substance. I learned to make lower-poly models from higher ones, and baking normals in Substance with them. I didn't love how the seam details turned out though, and it would've taken more work to color them, so I decided to paint them in Substance instead. The main material on the bunny was based on a burlap material preset. It looked gross and rough. In other words, perfect. It took some adjustment to dirty it up and soften it a bit. On the bottoms of the feet and the insides of the ears, I put a matted fur texture. I put some stitches on the face, and I was done (except for a button eye that I still need to add).

The next sculpture on the agenda is of a dashboard hula doll. It's my first human figure in 3D, and it's difficult. After hours of work, I was only happy with the hair. There's been a bit of stylistic conflict going on, which I think is the source of my trouble. My instinct is to try to make an anatomically accurate figure. But, I'm working off of a concept by our 2D artist, Huy, which is done in his style (anime-adjacent). BUT, I'm also referencing real photos of these dolls, which are cheaply produced, full of plastic seams, and anatomically wacky. Trying to blend all these wouldn't work, even if I had any experience sculpting. I will lean towards the look of the real dolls when I give it another go. Fingers crossed.

I'd like to practice more, but Pixelogic is real stingy with their licenses. Our license is network-based, meaning I have to be in the building to use ZBrush. I suppose I could use Blender's sculpting tools, despite those not quite being up to par.