Turning a 2D Drawing into a 3D Sculpt Using ZBrush

Introduction

My name is Daniel Merticariu, and I've been a 3D Character Artist for eleven years now. I've worked on various projects, both triple and double A. I've worked in game development studios, art outsource studios, and in advertising for a short while. I hope the film industry will be joining my list soon enough.

Although so far, my favorite thing has been working with indie studios. I planned to make the White Beard project first in a new series of stylized portraits. One in which my purpose would have been to achieve a sketched look similar to one of the drawings they were based on. I had chosen three portraits from this post by Ognjen Sporin, and had started working on them.

However, I think White Beard will be the only one for now, because I don't think the direction I found for this one will fit the other two sketches, and I wanted to do them all in the same style. I planned to try to add some dark floating lines, as if 3D contours were wrapping around the model, highlighting some of the details.

While sculpting, I discovered a different direction that worked, and I wanted to go with that one, thinking that if I'd add the dark floating contours on top, I'd end up overwhelming this model with details, and I didn't want that. The plan to develop a sort of sketchy style around these characters is a continuation of my grander scheme, if I may say so. The plan to develop a style of my own, or a set of styles of my own.

In a wish that I have to prove to myself, and to the world, if I'm not being too immodest, that digital art can be relevant outside of the simple reproduction of reality. Even if it's something simple, like the visibility of brushstrokes on a model, or some other thing that makes an artist recognizable. I spoke a bit more about this in my previous 80 Level interviews, which you can find here and here.

In the last couple of months, I've been told by a few people that they recognize my projects when I post something new, before they discover they are indeed mine. So, I'm beginning to gain confidence that it's actually working. Here's a glimpse of how White Beard looked after the first few hours of sculpting, and also the second one. I was planning on naming him Dark Eyes. Maybe I still will if I manage to finish him. But in the meantime, I started working on something else. Something bigger.

White Beard

The sculpting process of this character was straightforward, up to a point. I started from a head base mesh, and first I tried to achieve a basic likeness of the concept. My tendency when working with a base mesh is to try to achieve the right proportions of a portrait or character before subdividing. So, at the lowest subdivision level, with just the move brush mostly, and sometimes a bit of clay buildup with big strokes and a smooth on top, I try to achieve those base shapes.

The other subtools that I worked with are either extracted with masks from the base mesh and modeled in the shape that I need them, or started from a sphere. In most of the cases, it's both. On hair and beards, I tend to sketch on top of some Dynamesh spheres, because I like them to be sketchy and with the rugged polygonal look of Dynamesh. I feel like that rugged polygonal look helps me visualize how it will look later on.

After I get all those base shapes blocked in, I start refining. Usually the anatomy first, then I go subtool by subtool, adding what details are needed to get to a sort of complete state with the primary shapes.  On this project, that's the moment when I got into a bit of trouble. I had the primary shapes in, I had the secondary shapes as well, as seen in the first WIP image here, but I knew I also wanted some tertiary shapes, some details, and didn't know how I could do that while keeping it sketchy and sort of clean at the same time.

What I knew was that where I was with it at that point was too clean. So, I took a Digital Clay brush pack that I had and started experimenting with it. Went through a couple of them without being pleased, because I didn't want it to look as if having the typical details of sculpted clay emulated in ZBrush, I wanted it to be its own thing.

Skin, but not skin exactly, a sickly, unreal version of it. So, after experimenting with some Digital Clay brushes, adding strokes in the directionality of the bony landmarks and the skin folds, I was still not pleased. So I got back to the basic Clay Buildup brush and started digging into it again, quite literally this time. I thought, what if the marks in the sketch I was working from would represent holes? So that's what I did, I started sort of ruining it, and went as far as I could with it.

Also adding on top of the Digital Clay, another layer of brushstrokes, with the simple clay buildup brush, to sort of ruin the clarity of the digital clay brush pack. I think this worked in my favor because now the brush strokes of the clay buildup brush, which are quite recognizable, weren't 100% visible, but neither were the Digital Clay brushes.

So, I was pleased; it was time to move on to the hair. Which, again, I had no idea how to do, I was already far off the initial plan of making it look sort of cel shaded, with dark brush strokes as contours. Below is the result I had after this sculpting pass.

Sculpting the Beard

With the beard, initially, I tried just sculpting it, but I felt it was too simple, too unidimensional. So, I started using an IMM hair brush that I have. I don't really remember where I got this one, but I use it quite often. Normally, I don't leave it as it is. What I do is to make my first brush stroke in the direction I need, then, with that first strand, I try to achieve the shape that I want.

With inflate and smooth, I change the thickness of the root and tip, then with the Move brush I get it closer into shape, and then multiply it by moving with the gyzmo a few times. I build some base clumps like that, and then start moving those clumps around. Being careful to keep them grouped properly with polygroups, so that I can isolate, mask, and reuse when needed.

I try to have a big number of clumps, so that it doesn't get repetitive, and I build each new clump based on new shapes on a new area that I'm working on, while trying to also reuse on top, here and there, the ones that I already have. So, when moving to a new area of the beard or hair, I start by building the clumps that will be specific to its shapes, and then move some more generic clumps on top. Here's how the first few clumps looked, and then the final thing.

Another detail that I really liked modeling on this one was the golden filigree he has on his collar and on his hat. It was just impressionistically sketched in on the concept, and I wanted to recreate the same feeling in 3D, instead of going about and creating the realistic detailing that was suggested in the concept.

So I took the ZRemesher guide brush and made some doodles with it on top of the collar. Then, with the CurveTube brush, I clicked on it several times to establish the size of the tube. I could have drawn it in with the CurveTube brush from the start, but it's easier to get it clean from the start if you draw the guide first. I really like this filigree detail.

Topology and Lighting

Topology wasn't a problem for me with this one, because I just wanted to render the sculpt. So I tried to keep it clean and use the topology of my base mesh to have a clean sculpt. For texturing, I used Polypaint from ZBrush, and I imported it into Marmoset Toolbag as vertex color in the albedo. It's such a simple thing to do, I'm really grateful to the Marmoset Toolbag guys for adding this option.

You import, switch the setting of a dropdown menu, and that's it, you have color on your model. However, I do try to adjust the value of it from the material if needed, usually based on the lighting. Here's how the color looked in ZBrush at the end:

For this one, I did have to UV the spheres I used for the eyes in order to create an Emissive Map. Other than that, it's all basic Polypaint applied with the Paint brush and a simple alpha 62, from the basic ones we have in ZBrush. I used that one with the same reasoning in mind as I had with the Clay brush. Along the directionality of the facial landmarks, to make the detail pop a bit more and give the shapes a good flow.

For the lighting, I used a basic three-point light system. A stronger main light, a rim light, and a colored fill. I wanted to obtain something moody, even if that meant having some of the details around his eyes less visible. I also added a light where more of the detail was visible, but I ended up going for the darker one after all. Here's a preview of my setup:

And here's the second light setup that I tried out:

Conclusion

For the materials, I usually try to separate them into Roughness groups. I want to have some differentiation in Roughness between the big pieces, even if in this sort of project, the main driving force of the texture is the color, not the roughness. It's good to have some contrast between the materials, even if it's not extemely detailed contrast. At a glance, you will know immediately that two things are made of different materials if they shine differently.

Even if it's a small project, I felt I was able to invest a lot of thought into it, and I hope it's visible in the result. I think the main challenge I had with this one was trying to make something look sketchy, without it looking too sketchy. I think I made a first step in that direction, but I hope I'll be able to take it further in the next projects. The next step for me would be trying the same line of thinking, but on a bigger scale.

Daniel Merticariu, 3D Character Artist