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.