Anatomy & intro to ZBrush - wk 1
The above image shows different areas, including some muscles, labeled on a male human skull.
The above image shows the difference between a female and male human skull. The female skull is on the left and the male on the right.
Labelling these skulls helped me understand how important bone structure and muscles are to the way a persons face looks. Therefore helping with when I will sculpt certain areas of the face as I understand how the basic structure should look.
Comparison between skulls of different races
The image to left shows the different skulls based on race between male and female. The shape of the skull alters certain features of the face, such as the nose, eyes, mouth etc.
There is a difference in the size of the nasal cavity between the skulls with African being slightly larger than the other two.
In the female skulls you can also see a difference in the nose bone with the asian skull being less prominent.
These images below show an example of a face I made in Zbrush in my spare time, to try and get an understanding of the software.
I first started if with a sphere but then built the nose by building it up using the standard brush. I then played around with the move brush and ended up with a large chin. I dug out the bottom of the sphere to give it a more skull like shape (this can be seen in the image to the right). Eventually, when I got the hang of what the brushes did, I had a bit of fun and somehow created this weird creature, as shown in the images below. I have also added a screen recording of the process.
Zbrush noses - wk2
In this lesson I learned about the structure of the nose and then using Zbrush created one based on what I had learned. You can clearly see where the nose bone ends and where the cartilage begins as well as definition of the alar and lateral cartilage. I built this nose using the standard brush to build it up and then to define the area around the alar fat, and to give more detail, I used the dam standard brush. Below shows some screenshots of my nose sculpts as well as videos showing my process.
This is the second nose I sculpted. This one shows more alar fat, making the nostrils bigger.
Many people get nose jobs to "fix" the cartilage in their nose to a way they like more. For example, the image to the right shows Michael Jackson before and after he got his famous nose job.
In the images both the upper and lower lateral cartilage seem to have been altered as well as the alar fat being reduced, making the nostrils appear smaller. The columellar labial angle also points further upwards. Overall the nose appears pointier and thiner.
In my opinion I think this 'finer' nose looks more villainous than the original nose. Therefore I may use it as a reference for my villain sculpt project.
This is an image showing typical types of noses based on race. I found it quite interesting. This could help with when I want to establish a certain character when sculpting
Zbrush practice - nose & age
These two noses I sculpted using the images below as reference. This shows how the cartilage/fat can change with age. For example, the columellar labial angle points further downward with age.
Mouth - Wk 3
This image shows the different muscles and areas of the mouth that affect the shape/movement. This helped me with when I had to sculpt a mouth as I understood what key features must be included and how
In Zbrush I created models of a mouth based what I learned, shown in the images below and to the side (the image on the right is my first model and the images below are my second model).
The image on the right has more defined Modoiolus (nodes) and marionette lines (oral commissures), the lips are also much thinner. These features make this mouth seem like one of an elderly person.
The images below have less defined nodes and marionette lines as well as more filled out lips, making this mouth seem like one of a younger individual.
Video showing process of the sculpt
3D model of the mouth I sculpted
The left image shows famous actor Benedict Cumberbatch. He has a very distinctive cupids bow.
The above image shows Gaten Matarazzo. He is an actor, famously known for playing Dustin on stranger things and has a disability known as cleidocranial dysplasia, this affects the growth of teeth. Thus affecting the way he speaks as well as the way his mouth is formed. He has a more child like look, despite being 16 years old.
The image to the left shows a baby with a cleft lip, this is something people are born with and is when there is a gap between the upper lip and/or the roof of their mouth. Many people think the actor Joaquin Phoenix had a cleft lip and the scar is a result of a surgery to fix it. However, he was born with the scar and never actually fully had a cleft lip, he had a mild form known as a microform cleft which appears as a dent or scar from the lip to the nose.
In my opinion thin lips has a more villainous feel to it, also a very large stretched out smile is typical to villain characters. I may take this into consideration when sculpting my villain face.
As seen in the images these are popular villains and have very large smiles, giving a creepy sense in my opinion.
The Ear - wk4
This image shows the different areas of the ear.
The above images are screenshots I have taken form ZBrush of an ear I sculpted. I used a picture I took of my friends as a reference. The anti helix is quite large, making the triangular fossa smaller than other ears
Reference image of my friends ear.
Video showing the process of my ear sculpt
The above two images show deformities of the ear. The one on the left is known as cauliflower ear and is irreversible, it occurs when the ear is hit and starts filling with fluid, it dies and the outer ear becomes permanently swollen, resembling a cauliflower. The image on the right is known as Stahl's Ear or Spock/elf ear, is seen with some newborn infants and can be surgically repaired. It is characterised as a transverse crus, shown in the image, extending outwards instead of continuing upwards in a bend as the normal superior crus
Wk5 - EYE
The images below show the structure of the eye. This helped me understand how things differ and what I must include in my sculpting.
Bill Skarsgard, family known for playing Pennywise in the film It has very large eyes that bulge out slightly. These eyes are very impressionable and thus can be used in a very eery way, as did with the It films. In my opinion they are quite creepy and therefore I might model my villain eyes after this
TEXTURING
In this lesson we learned how to texture a sculpt in Zbrush, using the tools such as spotlight etc. and painting a texture on and then exporting it to Maya to render it.
I took a sculpt of lips I had done a few weeks ago and then using an image I found online (upper right image) I painted it on as my texture. I exported this to Maya and rendered it, resulting in the final images below.
Typical Villainous Traits
This blog article discusses some typical villainous traits and how they make us feel. https://www.cracked.com/blog/5-physical-traits-that-determine-if-character-evil/
1. SCARS - these are very common in evil characters. However can be seen in good guys too. The position of the scar tells us how to feel about the character, or what this character is like.
Over the eye gives a bad, tough guy, impression. Closer to the mouth - lunatic, crazy - such as in Joker. Chin scar - more rugged feel
Scars can also be seen in villainous animated/CG/fake/unreal characters as well
2. HAIR - this can also tell a lot about a character. Many famous evil guys have slicked back neat hair. However tend to be linked to he leaders or smart/evil geniuses. Such as Hannibal Lecter (sort of a crazy, evil genius) or the characters in GoodFellas, who were bad guys but they ran everything and normally didn't actually deal with the 'dirty work'.
3. Facial Hair - this acts as an internal barometer, tells us if the character puts time/care into the way they look. Scruffy looks can be linked to crazy people or unemployed people etc. Hairiness can sometimes also be linked with manliness/toughness. The cut also tells us a lot about the character, e.g. moustache can be creepy, goatee linked to evil leaders, etc. Beards can also be seen in animated characters
Villain mood board
1. I think of my villain has having a classy, sleek look similar to those in the pictures below. I like the hair of the f left and right image and the chin of the middle image. these images give a classy but evil feel.
2. Maintaining a classy look I still want my villain to have something different that looks quite creepy. I like the idea of altering the mouth in a way to do this.
I like the way the cheekbones are very prominent in this image to the left.
the nose in this image to the left, in my opinion, can suggest that the character got into a fight recently etc. so I may use this as reference when sculpting my nose.
Wk 9 - Fat
The image below shows the fat pads on the a human face.
Assignment 2 - Villain process
Above shows the first set of images I took from my villain sculpt. After taking a break and coming back to look at these pictures I realised a few things I had to change. The nose looked to wide and the nostrils were pointed to much upwards, therefore it looked a bit cartoonish. I also noticed that the side o the mouth where there was the cut was too smooth and therefore also didn't look realistic enough. I fixed these problems as well as added some more detail and eyes, seen in the images below.
Above shows the villain I sculpted. I added eyes, changed the brows, chin and sculpted the neck as well as fixed the problems I noticed with the nose and mouth. After taking these images I realised I had forgotten to define where the zygomatic arch is meant to be, as well as add the malar fat etc. to make it look more realistic.
DYNAMIC POSING
To the left shows a screenshot of the action units I decided to use for testing out different facial movements. Action units 9, 15, and 16 show disgust. However I also added action unit 4, and then later added more action units to be able to make different expressions.
I decided to add a sort of burn like texture to my villains face and also decided to sculpt the teeth separately. This is shown in the images to the left and above.
The next step was to texture my villain. I did this in Zbrush using the spotlight effect and images I found online and painted them on the face, blending them together. I then exported it into Maya to finish the render and dynamic posing
In Maya:
These are two videos showing the dynamic poses I animated for my villain. The one above is the original and it has two poses, disgust and anger. However it moves quite quickly so I decided to slow it down a bit, which is seen in the second video