Zbrush sculpting - Dragon

The first couple of hours sculpting this dragon's head, so very early stage of development.
I made it with Zbrush 4R6 on a Surface Pro 2, that's why I haven't been able to record more of the process !
For more pictures and renders, please visit : www.boulp.com
Original concept from Pythosblaze - mineral dragon : / pythosart

[@kiaritakarin]

You are so generous for sharing the knowledge with us in comments and description, Thank you!! ^^

[@Fowsed]

Hey, is it better to rig a character in 3ds max and then imoport to sculpt it in Z brush? Or is it faster to do all the work in Z brush?

[@ClayClaim]

WOW, extraordinary! That is so awesome! You have earned a big supporter :)

[@MrBoulp]

+ClayClaim Thanks a lot for your comment ^^ Just watched some of your videos and really liked them, good stuffs man !

[@ClayClaim]

You are welcome! And THANK you! Which character you would like to see next on my channel? :)

[@MrBoulp]

+ClayClaim Haha well if you ask me, I would love to see your version of Black Sad ! One of my favorite comic book :) www.kissmygeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Blacksad-BD.jpg

[@ClayClaim]

Thanks for the respond! I did not know Black Sad till now, but the picture looked very amazing and now I am really interested in that comic book. I will let you know, once I have read the comic and startet working on the char :D

[@MrBoulp]

Haha that would be awesome !

[@martinn5626]

Beautiful Sculpt... How long have you been working in 3d?

[@uioup7453]

Hi, I wanted to ask how you made the scales, the basemesh?

[@camronsteele]

How did you make the timelapse video from one angle

[@MrBoulp]

I made a tutorial here : www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?167961-Boulp-s-sketchbook&p=1106263#post1106263 Hope it helps !

[@crecrescio]

Hi can you tell me the brush you used to make that effect for the scales . That makes it look like cracks ok hard skin. Is very good!

[@MrBoulp]

Thanks a lot for your comment! I made a short breakdown here a long time ago: archive.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?167961-Boulp-s-sketchbook&p=1106263#post1106263

[@drepple]

You should put some music under it

[@kingofallmonsters9428]

If someone could kindly give me a step by step way to download Z brush it would be greatly appreciated!

[@caenir4428]

well you search up zbrush, go on the website, press buy zbrush, buy it, then click download, follow what it says to do

[@Hydr312]

how you did this smla and big sheds ?

[@muizmahdi4623]

Dynamesh maybe ? for the big ones

[@Neceros]

Are these models from Zbrush capable of the needs of gaming? For instance, in blender, you can create an object with precisely the amount of triangles you need to keep the loading times quick. How do these models turn out in the end?

[@MrBoulp]

Well I would say that this model in particular is really not real time engine friendly! Way too heavy at this stage. The quick and dirty way would be to decimate it in zbrush. You can ask for a specific amount of polys that you want to target, but the topology won't be pretty! Or do a retopo by hand for something a more optimised. But yes most studios these days are using zbrush for the hires stage, and retopo in any 3d soft.

[@eliv1066]

You could bake a normal map out of the higher poly model and apply it to a lower poly model in your game engine of choice

[@agiro01]

Nice job. How do you get that awesome hard surface look? My sculpts ofter remain fluffy :/

[@MrBoulp]

+Ágoston Romhányi Don't be afraid to take the time to get the effect that you're looking for, details are very time consuming. Not only details but getting somewhere that look natural and (or) possible with your surface is really not easy. I spent wwaaaaaaayyy more than 3 minutes on this model ;) If you missed it, I show a little bit of the process here : www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?167961-Boulp-s-sketchbook&p=1106263#post1106263 Look for references, and experiment. A good exercise would be to study folds from a master piece. Try to mimic the flow and make it work. We should be able to guess the type of fabric without any details. Then all the details on top of that should work (but it's time consuming ;) I remember it made me less shy to pull and push the surface the way it's supposed to be, add contrast. Sorry for the late answer, I couldn't hit the reply button under your question for ages, can't figure why ! Hope it helps ^^

[@agiro01]

+Greg Coelho thanks, yeah I bet it took the time, though I was sculpting a dragon as well and took 30 hours or so and I still did not like the results. I definitely check those tuts out :D

[@takworld6770]

That was quick

[@Laurkiller]

Hey man, lovely sculpt. May I ask why you work so high-res from early on? I see alot of sculptors starting of as low res as possible and working their way up. You don't seem to do that and still the end result is really cool. Is there a specific reason?

[@MrBoulp]

Hi! Thanks a lot :) Well I worked on this thing quite a long time ago, so it's gonna be hard to describe what I was thinking at this time! What I still do for sure is starting a bit lower res than that when I don't really know where I'm heading. I had a concept for this dragon as a starting point(link in the description ^^), so I already had a pretty good idea of what it would look like. Even if the end result is a bit different, I still went for a pretty similar silhouette. When starting without an initial concept, I like to have a mesh slightly lower res just so it's easier to play with during the first half hour. Plus it doesn't allow you to start getting lost into useless details too early in the process, which is good ;)

[@Laurkiller]

Aight thanks alot ma man, makes sense :)

[@rykensnow]

holy fckn moly. all I could ever do is a doodie

[@Justathereptile]

How do you do the back scales like that?

[@MrBoulp]

Justathereptile At 0:27, you can see that I drew like a shield shape mask at the top of the model. Then I extracted this mask as a new geometry and duplicated it along the back. At this time, the back scales and the dragon's body are 2 differents subtools, that's why you can't see the evolution of the back scales in the timelapse. I ended up merging the scales with the body and dynameshed them together. I hope it makes sense !

[@Justathereptile]

Greg Coelho Okay thanks, very Intresting to.

[@frejazz2]

If an individual wants to live segregated or not it should be his/her choice to do so, but not forced or threatened into it or out of it

[@jerzygorczyca2412]

Could You share your ZBrush for Surface UI?

[@MrBoulp]

The surface pro 2 screen resolution is 1080p like most of the screens available on the market, so I don't have a specific UI for my surface. But here is the UI I use most of the time, whether I work on my surface or any other computer : boulp.com/perso/zbrushUI.rar Use "z" as a shortcut to open a panel with some of the main functions. You'll also have to move the "slash2" and "smooth stronger" brushes into your startup folder if you want them to load up with Zbrush. Otherwise you'll get 2 empty squares instead. Hope it helps :)

[@jerzygorczyca2412]

Greg Coelho thanks. i'll check it

[@jerzygorczyca2412]

Greg Coelho One more question.Are you using any kind of artdock?

[@MrBoulp]

Jerzy Gorczyca No the screen is already pretty small without more buttons, I use the cover keyboard. I never tried it actually, but there is no space at all on the side of the screen to rest your wrist. So my guess is that you could work with this setup for 15-20 minutes max !

[@jerzygorczyca2412]

Greg Coelho Thanks for help. I tested power-grid.roccat.org/en/Home/ and it's really nice for short-cuts. I thing about my own version of Pablander UI for cintiq companion (pablander.com/website/wacom-cintiq-companion-review/). His UI is little to small and to crowded for surface i think i can create something more ergonomic :)

[@RR-kn1tg]

why u are watching me

[@YASHPOOJARI]

#dragonbooster

[@StrongFreeLovin]

This tooth makes no sense, it would cover his eyes or even poke through them...

[@dlconceptstube]

please notice me senpai

[@MrBoulp]

Hahaha noticed ! Please now watch this video 4000 more hours ! ;)