Zbrush Imp

This was our first project in Zbrush. We were making an imp, similar to the first project we had in Mudbox.

This is using Zspheres to block out a shape. I thing zspheres are pretty cool, because they take a lot of the hassle out of blocking out a character shape. To do something like this in Mudbox, I think the only way is to block it out in Maya or 3dsMax first, which involves moving lots of vertices and such.

Maybe there's other ways I don't know about, but I like this because it's simple place and move.

Here is the full character shape with just zspheres.

After making zspheres, you then press A on the keyboard and it changes your zspheres into a basic 3D model. It's really useful.

Then I went through following the tutorial, adding details on a low subdivision. Later, you bump the subdivisions up to add finer details, just like in Mudbox.

This is a high sub-level with lots of details, and different color base/material. I am beginning to add the eyes here.

This is from the section with the watch parts. I got the project files for this base that the imp would stand on and I planned on painting it myself, but then I learned we only needed to do the imps.

This is a final picture of my Imp with crazy hair. I thought adding hair was pretty cool since you basically draw a mask and click a button. It made it really simple, because then you can just use specific brushes to add details in the hair.

Overall, I like ZBrush wayyyyy more than mudbox. It is quite a bit more difficult to grasp and understand how to use, but I can pretty clearly see how powerful it is. I like it a lot.

Mecoptera

This is a Mecoptera, also known as a scorpionfly. I decided to model it because it's kind of frightening, and pretty nasty looking. The "stinger" is actually its genitals though, so jokes on them.

I started by using a black and white drawing (?) as a reference image. I modeled it in maya by making the geometry transparent and then moving the vertices where I wanted them.

 It was pretty much finished after adding the wings and the antennae.

 I selected it all and them imported it all. This did not work well. Mudbox didn't like anything too complex at all and in fact just decided it hated me for even attempting this, and for the rest of my experience it plagued me with random crashes, becoming unresponsive every time I saved, and just generally ruining my day at every turn.

 So then I decided I would try and be friends with this all-seeing entity that apparently was really angry that I would dare to try using Maya for anything. I restarted completely in Mudbox. This simple geometry I made in Mudbox stopped working regularly. I made it from scaling a cube up and out, but it wasn't having it.

 This would be restart number 3. I used a cube in mudbox, rotated it, and extended it, then retopologized it. There should be no problems now, right?

 And for a brief while, I believed peace and cooperation had been achieved with Mudbox. I managed to sculpt a very basic head shape. Progress, considering the last 4 days of work didn't yield any results.

 I pushed my luck, and managed to clean up the previous maya version and import it. I aligned, scaled, and rotated my way to a somewhat successful rendition of this bug.

 Considering that I had stopped counting the amount of crashes I'd run into, I felt pretty good with this Frankenstein's monster of a design, put together with the bodies of different crashed files.

This joyful reprise was short lived.

 My file was corrupt again, and I was at my wits end with this one. All I had left was starting over, doing it differently, as if I alone had control over time itself and were doomed to replay my own life, time and time again until one day, impossibly, I would at last be free.

 I had no words. Every save was a coin flip. I would click the button, watch the little green wheel of my cursor spin around and around. I'd click on Mudbox, and mudbox would go grey. The text I'd become familiar with taunted me on the top of the window: "Not Responding"

Every time I saved, Mudbox was there to toy with my emotions and give it's final say if it would allow itself to save.

 But the story was not over. I had achieved progress. Somehow, starting over from just a sphere and grabbing and stretching and grabbing and stretching over and over and over led me to the piece seen here. Certain brushes didn't work. Smoothing was basically non existent. But I had progress. I made a functional, if badly proportioned head. But it was there.

 I was able to make legs too, and duplicate them and place them where they went. I felt as if I had emerged from dust into a world of possibilities, choices, and opportunities for the first time. I was now, finally, free.

 I wasted no time in adding wings. Who knew when this reality would reveal itself as just a facade, just a mere veneer of security, as it were, and I would be forced to once again restart.

By the day it was time to present to the class, I was happy. I had managed to keep the beast at bay. I had evidently satiated it's hunger for my time, for my effort and resources. It was a tamed beast, at my will to be used. Right?

No. Of course not. As I loaded my file, "meco_15" I was greeted with a small pop-up box.
"Mudbox has encountered an error and needs to close." The error told me. I responded with clicking "OK"

"Would you like to send this error to Autodesk?"
Sure.

And then nothing. No Mudbox running. So I open file "meco_14" sure that it was just a problem in transitioning the file. NOPE. 14 was corrupt as well. And 13. Can't forget about 13.

At this point, all I could do was open file 12, import some basic geometry from maya (praise be to whatever caused it to work this time) and set them in the general area. It was over, Mudbox had defeated me.



tl;dr
Mudbox broke me down into a shell of a man.