zbrushmattmccallum-blog

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There are a few reasons for my choice of the ZBrush digital sculpting elective. One being that after an exchange in Vienna where my architectural modelling knowledge was put to it’s limit, I felt it was necessary to move away from more basic modelling packages such as Autocad and Sketchup. In my time in Vienna I worked mostly in Grasshopper and Rhino which were mostly unfamiliar to me at the time. There were some classes in Maya and scripting which I would have enjoyed going to but unfortunately did not have the time. At GSA, in the architecture department, the teaching is mostly standard rectilinear building technology and has been for atleast two decades. This was drastically different to Vienna which feels like it is embracing emerging technologies such as VR and AR as design and presentation tools. When I heard of the ZBrush elective I decided it would be an ideal release from the standard boxes of architecture into a realm of organic sculpture and form.

 Because of my exchange I was unable to attend the first two classes in person but through emailing Danny I was able to start teaching myself ZBrush as a form of distance learning through Canvas and through tutorials online. The first couple of tutorials encompassed ZSpheres and brush type introductions which appeared to be simple and straight forward however the user interface of Zbrush and the odd characteristic of refusing to run if you didn’t set up a sculpt in the exact perfect way was infuriating. The methods of setting up a sculpt eventually made sense but even now I run into some dead ends when I am on a roll. Saving regularly is key although I wish that methods of saving were explained more as I found myself lost at times.

 The first few weeks in my diary that were taught and led by Danny were very useful introductions to alphas, noise, brush types and hard surfaces vs. organic surfaces. The organic surfaces modelling seems fair and understandable but the hard surfacing in modelling seems to appear as easy as sketchup but feels clunky, limiting and some times unusable. I think what I learned most through modelling hard surfaces is that I will not be using ZBrush to model hard surfaces, that is what Rhino and other programs are for.

 Since Zbrush is very useful tool for modelling characters or people, for my sculpt I chose to relate the topic of my architectural thesis, which amongst many other subjects explores morality and taboo, by searching for characters within Hieronymus Bosch’s triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights. In the final painting which depicts hell, alongside the Garden of Eden and the Garden of Earthly Delights, the devil depicted is depicted sitting upon a high wooden chair as a beast with a beak and smooth body. The devil is shown devouring sinful souls and excreting them into a hole in the ground full of other trapped tormented souls. Bosch’s painting was thought to be a critique on the shamelessness of the contemporary renaissance man and this was a depiction of punishment.

 I have detailed my process for my sculpt on my blog with screenshots and saved tools along the way but my idea to split the sculpt into different objects to manage the load was informed by a practice exercise from earlier in the course. I decided to split the hat, chair, character, shoes and humans into separate components of the sculpt. The cauldron hat was the simplest and easiest object to begin with using a primitive sphere and the lathe brush to create the lip. Next, I began forming a basic skeleton mesh of the devil from Z-Spheres against reference images of a figurine that I found online. Once I was happy with the basic outline I began adding detail and regularly z-remeshing when getting to difficult sculpting parts like the opening of the mouth and such. The smooth brush was a saviour when it came to making all of these new additions blend in with the base mesh. The main brushes I would use were the standard brush, move, clay, layer, and rake brush to continually add to my character. The reference image showed a smooth and plain body, I decided that this would be too simplistic and so I took fun in creatively reimagining and embellishing the detail of the devil’s anatomy.

 The final piece I am rather happy with and am surprised that I have been able to sculpt, the software is complex and complicated but Danny’s teaching and explanations were concise, useful and incredibly useful. I feel like I could begin to sculpt more objects for fabrication by 3D print or objects to exist within renderings or games. The elective was well worth the experience and I hope that I can continue using it as a design tool in my architecture and design career. I would love to know more about animation and rigging character models but I am aware that this is easily something that could extend into a course or at least another 10 weeks of learning. Overall the Zbrush elective was very useful and I hope that it continues into next year for other post graduate electives.

  Matt McCallum

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Week 10 - Closeup

Closeup of the sculpt

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Week 10 - Final

This is the final image of the sculpt within the hard surface space

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Week 10 - Hard Surface Enviroonment

I initialized a simple cube and stretched it to make the back wall. I then inset multiple edges both horizontally and vertically. I used the Zmodeler tool to extrude was appeared to be tiles along the top, bottom and sides.

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Week 10 - Chair alpha

I used a timber texture as an alpha map for the chair to make it look old. 

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Week 10 - Droplet

I used a sphere and stretched it again using radial symmetry to create the droplet below the chair

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Week 10 - Surface detail alpha

I used an alpha of a cracked painting to create cracked and morphed skin. The cracked paint is something very prominent in Bosch’s work.

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Week 10 - Vase finished

I used the standard and smooth brush to sculpt the vase with radial symmetry. 

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Week 10 - Vase

I started with a primitive sphere and then stretched it to begin sculpting it as a vase

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Week 10 - Chair finished

Using this technique I was able to finish the basic shape of the chair and then move on to the vases for the feet

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Week 10 - Boolean Subtract

I used the extrusions to create the back of the chair and after following advice on the canvas learning material I was able to do a boolean subtract to remove the second shape from the first.

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Week 10 - Legs for days

The legs for the chair were simple primitive cubes and then stretched

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Week 10 - Hard Surface Chair

I followed a tutorial on Youtube that went into great detail on all the possibilities in the Zmodeler brush. I used qMesh and merged a circular planar surface and a square plane together to create the extrusion of the seat

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Week 09 - Finishing point this week

I decided to stop here for this week and continue the hands and other limbs next session. I will also take a shot at the vase and the chair next session too.

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Week 09 - Face Definition

I began adding embellishment and detail to the face to create more emotion. I also added 2 primitive spheres are eyes

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Week 09 - Face and eyes

Time to start with the face and eyes, I used the standard brush and held alt to remove from the surface mesh. This way I could make two symmetrical eye sockets

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Week 09 - Mouth

I quickly got back to the stage I was at before and began modelling the opening of the mouth