Learn How This Artist Sculpted a Stylized Musician in ZBrush

Introduction

Hello, I'm Anario Hill. I've been involved with 3D art and characters for over 10 years now. Initially starting in Blender and Sculptris, before discovering ZBrush. I had a chance to contribute to The Last of Us Part II at Naughty Dog and Call of Duty: Vanguard at Sledgehammer Games.

Storytelling and music are extremely important to me when it comes to choosing a character to design and bringing life to the still render images. My work is pretty chaotic and iterative at the same time. I often like to jump right into it, prototype, blockmesh, and rather get somewhere ugly than anywhere at all, or fail and start all over again.

Modeling

For the head, I started from a primitive male Base Mesh and carved out what ended up being a very confused middle-aged looking man. Most of the sculpting was freestyle, as I had no direct reference. Even when I do use references, I never aim at a likeness, but rather deviate sooner or later into an original facial structure/design. Blockmeshing hair, clothes, and accessories early on helps to read the character a little easier. Painting a basic black and white texture also elevates readability.

Hair was the default cylinder that I used with its default topology. Whatever number of loops it has, it's the exact amount that allows the wavy/curly effect on hair. Duplicating one by one, I eventually got the final result. Merged and polygrouped each hair strand. Individually groomed and polished. I then duplicated the layers and made them smaller. With two layers of hair, I was able to break the look and silhouette a little further. The first layer indicated the big shape and silhouette. The second layer allowed for more breakouts and smoothed the overall integration.

In KeyShot, where I rendered the final presentation, I used a contour texture that I plugged into the node graph. It added color to the edges of the hair geometry. That's an easy trick to add depth to your characters, or certain parts of them.

Eyes were sculpted individually, adding an asymmetric feel to them. Painted with a Clay Build-Up Brush. The outfit is just a simple extraction from the Base Mesh. I used ZRemesher and a whole lot of sculpting.

The microphone was a cylinder that I duplicated a bunch of times, scaled and transformed, until the silhouette felt appropriate enough to look like a microphone. For the head of it, I used UVs and applied a seamless texture via a Surface Modifier. Painted the cavities with a darker shade.

This is a conceptual 3D artwork. Topology was not a priority for this project, nor were the UVs. I take care of the textures in ZBrush, and I use KeyShot for rendering straight from ZBrush.

One of the tricks I found useful was to use a Clay BuildUp Brush to texture. It's a unique process compared to painting using a Standard Brush. The main difference is the sharpness and its ability to detect cavities and edges. This textured layer adds depth and a stylized effect. I don't shy away from colors and experimental textures, especially when I am figuring out the palette.

Conclusion

Throughout the project, I had a few principal lighting scenarios in ZBrush and KeyShot, along with a bunch of other setups to test the model, textures, etc.

The first principle lighting was built directly in ZBrush. It was achieved with an Environmental Light cap that simulated a nightclub environment. A background image generates lights that you can later adjust, and turn on/off individual light caps as desired. After some tweaking, I focused on the shaders and textures of my character to adjust to that lighting.

KeyShot had a few lighting cases, too. The goal was to make Travis embedded in the scene. HDRI drove the scene, which mainly gave me a Fill Light and a Back Light. The rest had to be constructed around the character. I used three main lights: two rim lights that follow the basic hues and values of the background colors, and two lights pointing directly down at the character (blue-ish tone).

To me, storytelling is extremely crucial. I will try to focus more on it going forward. My advice for beginners is to keep improving their eyes and keep practicing.

Anario Hill, Artist

Interview conducted by Emma Collins