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Statement
This last week of progress has returned to me incredible results in the meaning that the improvement in the anatomy thing are getting really good taking that "not so good" advice about learn anatomy in a different way than usual and I think that finally I have learned all the new improvements of the last Zbrush software update, there is an amazing too called Spotlight and this time the development team from Pixologic have delivered a very good tool to create forms and shapes, it's more related to the hardsurface thing but the change is huge and intuitive to keep moving forward and make it more easy to digest the whole UX from Zbrush and all the things that software can offer you in one place.
Let's not lose the sight from the main point so, I'll talk next about the anatomy thing, monster anatomy of course is never equal as human anatomy, there are approximations and nothing is impossible in for the art world, but I decided some weeks ago to learn about anatomy but not as usual, taking some classes or tutorials about human anatomy, I decided to start it at something different, creating creatures and applying to them some characteristic of the human anatomy. What am I trying to mean is next here:
This time started the exercise deforming and refining at the same time the human shape.
After that exercise I found up myself just paying a bit with it and this is the result of it, more confidence in getting humanoid shapes.
The Spotlight Thing
Meanwhile this week finally after so many time, I finish to comprehend and get the overall update of Zbrush 2019, that was really slow to be honest because Zbrush 2020 will be coming by the end of this year or even more closer this next month due to the publish schedule they have, but the point here is that when there is a software update you must spent no more than one to learn clearly all the updates that comes with the patch or the expansion, this time it took me more than one month, but feels good, to be updated and aware of all the new things that your favorite software can offer you and the new and improved Spotlight tool have much more things that blew my mind to be honest related to the Zbrush boolean system and it can make very sharp and clean stuff with this new development that Pixologic offers, results? next here:
The decorative lines and the cuts across the surface are product of the new Spotlight improvement, I'm able to show up more detailed hardsurface concepts with this tool.
Clearly I need to improve even more my speed using this, because I'm learning all of this new things inside of the challenge time that actually is set in 120min daily, I'm planning to raise the limit very soon but for the moment I'm getting quick response and speed on the concept development, but this tool can help me to deliver more detailed shapes in the next days of the render.
The Strategy
An important mistake appeared this week, and this is what this blog chapter is about, the mistake? I think that I have been doing something wrong, and that ironically is to have an strategy, since I started this challenge, I have been just opening a dynamesh sphere in Zbrush and then spent the time limit throwing lines, shapes and details into a digital mass just projecting what my mind was building for me in the imagination and loosing time specially in the satisfaction "thing", why? because we as artist don't rest until what we are doing starts to satisfy us, as creators we start to suffer that particular thing and I was losing time doing that, so I decided this week to create a base mesh or a base shape with geometrical forms and it boost the speed and the improvement of my skills to the top.
On my day_131 to day_140 post there are much more models made under this new way, I need to add that there is nothing compared to confront your sculpt from zero, but is really good to use geometrical object to build up what you are thinking and gives a good approximation to what you are trying to reach and open infinite alternatives to new ideas and sculpts. Back to the point, the strategy is to set up a graphical base of what you have in your mind, a basic one, no more than 15 minutes sketching or building up with geometrical shape if your case is the digital sculpt.
Detailing
This is something can cage you forever, and I'm talking about details, I'm a kind of obsessed with detailing an sculpt or an artwork but thankfully I decided to put a time limit on the challenge, if not this will be a complete chaos, even sometimes I spent my whole time just detailing and forgetting other things, it's really easy to see in the whole progress I have been achieving here, sometime in two hours I can reach a very good full body concept and other days I almost can make a comprehensible shape on the sculpts and that is because I mix getting out of the comfort zone and detailing, so the result of that is huge amounts of time lost in depicting a very detailed small area of what I'm doing, more easy to explain.
First step: spent 30 min masking all the surface of the concept just to bust my pen and tablet skill.
After the mask inflate the space that was selected to be affected by the mask. Just to achieve something different than a bunch of creature bust and hard surface bots.
Cables and wires can always save your mess, and this one I like it just for the little grade of detail that the wires let me achieve on this one.
A Difference
This week remarks to me a huge difference, and it's related to the learning thing, been a lone ranger in this way and do what ever you want just to learn how to solve things by your own is good is really good because it can help to be a independent artist, but getting yourself into the learning thing like tutorials, classes, courses and all of that stuff is going to launch you like a rocket out of the space, and lot of the learning I got this last week was thanks to Arrimus3D tutorials, Michael Pavlovich, Artstation Learning, Adan Martinez and they are all out there in the internet, easy and free access to reach what ever you want.
Till next post.