493 Final Presentation

Hello everyone! My name is Nicole Jackson and this is what I have done over the past 15 weeks.

My first project was the carnivorous plant.

The concept art that I created for the project

Carnivorous Plant by Nicole Jackson on Sketchfab

My second project is the therizinosaurus sculpting.

The concept art I found and am using as inspiration

The side orthographic view that I created for the project

The initial zspheres sketch based on the orthographics

Thanks for the wonderful class! I hope you all have a wonderful break and happy holidays!!

Week 15

This week I have been working on creating a zsphere armature that will be the basis of the Therizinosaurus sculpt. I tried to recreate the proportions of the concept orthigraphics as close as possible with zspheres. It is not quite right in some areas (such as the face) where the zspheres couldn't quite recreate properly but I will fill in those areas later with zsketch and/or sculpting. I am also much happier with how the front of the dinosaur is turning out. I was having problems drawing it but once I had the 3D shapes to move around I was able to get what I wanted much quicker. While working on this armature I noticed that I was able to work a lot better and more efficiently with zspheres, as well as zBrush in general, than I have in the past. That has made me quite happy since learning zBrush was one of my main goals at the beginning of the semester. The next step for this project is to do a few more tweaks to the armature until I am really happy with it and then start using zsketch over the top of the zspheres. I haven't had good luck with zsketch in the past so I will see if I can get better results this time.

Summary of the Semester

Hi! My name is Nicole Jackson and I am a Modeler, Texture Artist and Rigger.

My main goals for the semester were to learn zBrush and to get one or two projects that I could put in my portfolio.

I decided that for my first project I would sculpt a carnivorous plant. I was inspired by the following reference image.

I then created my own concept art:

Once I had the concept art, it was time to start sculpting in zBrush. The first part I worked on was the pot. I wanted it to look like an old and very damaged clay pot.

I then used zspheres to create an armature for the plant's stem and head and began to sculpt in detail.

Then I created low poly meshes in Maya for the leaves and then posed and arranged them in zBrush until I was happy with the placement. 

Then I smoothed the leaves and began adding detail to them. I also added some waviness to the leaves in order to make them look more interesting and started attaching them to the stem. I also worked on adding roots to the plant. I wanted the plants to be thick like those of an orchid. They were created using zspheres.

Once I was finished adding detail to the sculpt, I used zBrush's retopology tools to retopologize it. I wasn't too worried about the topology since the mesh was never meant to be animated but I wanted it dense enough that it could hold enough of the detail. The topology was a little dense around the edges of the leaves and there are areas were the topology wasn't as good as it could be but, for the most part, I was happy with it.

The next step was to create UVs so that it could be textured. I also used a checkerboard pattern texture to test the UVs for distortion and proper resolution.

Once the UVs were finished it was time to texture. I decided to use Substance Painter to make the textures. The following was the final results:

Carnivorous Plant by nicolej on Sketchfab

I also started working on another project: a Therizinosaurus. I came across a piece of concept art of a Therizinosaurus and I though it would be fun to sculpt in zBrush. 

To make it easier to sculpt, I created some orthographics based on the concept art as well as a skeleton reference of the therizinosaurus.

I will not be able to finish this project by the end of the semester but I will continue to work on it and hopefully it will turn out good enough to put in my portfolio. 

I didn't get as much done as I wanted to this semester but I am a LOT more comfortable working with zBrush and I have at least one project that I can use in my portfolio so I'm happy.

Week 14

This week I've been working on refining the orthographics. I changed up the proportions and tried to make the anatomy more accurate (at least as accurate as dinosaur anatomy from an incomplete skeleton can be). I also started working on the front orthographics but I've never been very good at translating side orthos to front orthos. I don't like how it is turning out so I'll need to work on it quite a bit before I'm happy with it.

Week 13

For the past week I have started working on my Therizinosaurus project. As suggested by one of my classmates, I decided to create my own orthographics first. That way, it will be a lot easier for me to work from rather than the concept art alone. This is what I have done this week.

These are the two references that I worked from. The first is a skeleton diagram that I used for the shape and then I added some of the design elements from the second concept image. It still needs a lot of work and I need to do more anatomy reference before I'm finished but I am happy with the results so far.

 There isn't a lot of time left in the semester so I probably won't get much farther than the concept art and maybe a basic sculpt but I am planning on getting as far as I can and then continuing this project after I graduate.

Week 12

This week I finished the carnivorous plant project.

Carnivorous Plant by nicolej on Sketchfab

I have also spent a lot of time collecting reference material. I am planning on sculpting a therizinosaurus is zBrush based on the following reference image.

The Therizinosaurus was a dinosaur with the largest known claws of any animal. The claws could get as  long as two feet in length. The Therizinosaurus was an herbivore and likely used it's claws to collect leaves and for defense.

It was also likely at least partially covered in feathers.

Other reference and artist renditions:

Week 11

This week I have been working on texturing my carnivorous plant project. It took me a while to get the file ready and imported into Substance Painter (I had to revisit a few of the Substance Painter Fundamentals videos from 420) but I finally got it imported and was also able to import a normal map that I created in zBrush (although it was upside down to begin with---strange).

I spent about 10 hours or so texturing it and I am pretty happy with how it is turning out. I haven't gotten very far on the pot and roots yet but those shouldn't take very long at all to texture compared to the plant, which is now finished. I also worked on exporting some of the maps to make sure it was working correctly. I also noticed that there is a preset for Sketchfab which is where I was planning to put this model so that was a great find. It seems like it will export the model and textures straight to my account there so it will make exporting the whole thing a lot easier.

My textured plant model in Substance Painter:

Pot and Roots, WIP:

At the moment, I'm losing a lot of the detail of the pot so I'll have to find ways of bringing some of that detail back. Also, I haven't gotten to the dirt yet so, at the moment, it is the same color as the pot. I did have the dirt finished but then substance painter crashed and I lost an hour or two of work. So, now, I'm working to repeat the work that I lost.