It's Completed

My demon is finished! I did some post processing in PhotoShop to add a simple background and added some darker colours into the body. I am thrilled with the way it has turned out.

Also, there are two versions. Which one is better?

If you can't spot the difference, one has pale green eyes and the other has completely black eyes.

Check out my work on my Behance page! My next project is creating a game asset.

Detailing and Polypainting

A huge amount of progress has been made since the last post. The detailing is pretty much done and the painting of the demon is coming to end as well. I am so pleased with the result so far!

I added the eyes as well; before that it didn't look alive. But now that there are pupils and irises, it's looking more life-like and realistic (for a fictional character!). I used a mixture of alphas to detail the skin, such as the wrinkles and scratches. And using darker colours for the indented sections of the body, it really brings out the form and silhouette. I'm glad I chose green for the eye colour as it's a nice contrast to the skin colour.

I think the spikes running down the spine add a nice touch the character, enforcing his demonic nature. At the moment, the model currently has around 4 million polygons. I will eventually retopologise it for my portfolio, as well as keeping the high poly one.

Finally moving onto the render process now and final detailing.

Sculpting the Teeth

Today was spent sculpting the teeth of my demon and refining some of the facial features. The picture looks a bit crappy because I don't actually render these WIP pictures as the lighting and shadows aren't quite right as I haven't set them up yet!

Once the main form was blocked out, I could finally turn off symmetry and start defining the facial features better. Because, in life (real or fiction), people and creatures are not 100% symmetrical. So here I have made one eye a little bit droopier and one side of the face is more bony.

The horns look out of place at the moment, as I just started them as I finished for the day. I plan to (with the advice from my girlfriend) have horns running down the spine of the demon, and have a horn protruding from the elbow.

I can't wait to get onto poly-painting this character and rendering him out.

You can view my WIP on Behance!
Also, follow me on Twitter and I have a LinkedIn too!

Refining the Body

I spent most of the day today sculpting the head and toning down the muscles of the demon. In all honesty, the way I previously left the head turned out to be rather phallic! But it looks completely different now, with some finer details being added.

I really think he's coming into shape now. Of course, I am far from finished, but the more it begins to take better shape, the more determined I am to complete it. The head I am pleased with. He looks angry and mean, by the shape of his eye brow.

I've really gone for "proper" anatomy here. Obviously it will never be proper, being a demon which isn't real. But the same muscle groups apply and I have a brilliant resource for muscular structure. I have that site open on my other monitor and it makes it easy to sculpt the muscle shape and depth across the body.

I found the previous version was too muscular; I much prefer it this way. However, things change all of the time, so it may look completely different (muscular structure wise) later on!

That's all for today. Tomorrow I will continue refining the body (silhouette) and creating the teeth.

A New Project

After I completed the little worm, I spent an hour or so trying out techniques for creating rocks in ZBrush. It sounds easy and boring, but rocks and stones are huge environmental assets for games and 3D films. I learnt a very quick and easy way to make a realistic looking rock that can then be exported into various programs to texture it, if required. Obviously, it's possible to texture the object in ZBrush.

This rock isn't textured; it just has the original red wax material that comes with ZBrush. It was simply starting with a sphere and using the move tool with DynaMesh on to manipulate the points into a rock shaped object. I adjusted the noise curve (much like the level curve in Photoshop) to create the bumps and divots you see on the rock. 

However, my next main project is to create a portfolio ready demon character. Again, I will be following a guide but adding things and doing things differently.

I started off using a tool called a ZSphere. This tool makes it incredibly easy to create rough poses for characters (it's what was used to create the worm). You then turn the ZSphere mesh into an editable mesh which can be sculpted on.

At the moment, I've been working on the top half of the body. The front and back muscles are near enough defined, along with the arms.The Clay Buildup brush is amazing to add rough details such as muscles. The next step is to continue defining the muscles and start to shape the head by adding horns/ears, and the general facial features.

In my opinion, it has got off to a good start, and I hope it continues that way!