Gene Kelly WIP

This quarter I'm doing an independent Study in Zbrush. I'll be doing two sculpts. One photorealistic bust of a celebrity and one full body sculpt of a fictitious creature.

To start with Mr Kelly, I scoured the internet for pictures of the star. After I found a front and side view I liked, I pulled them into Photoshop and started planning out my edge loops as you can see to the right.

I've started doing this with all the faces I make. When I start modeling, I can move faster and I'm not just making it up as I go along. Of course I never get it quite right in the drawing so I tweak the position of some loops as I go.

After that I take the images into Maya and use them as reference for blocking out a rough head mesh. This head just blocks out the basic likeness, neglecting details and asymmetries that will come out in the final sculpt.

I also block in shapes for the rest of the model (eyes, shirt, hat, etc.). Right now he's missing hair and eyebrows, but I'll come back to that.

Once the models were where I wanted, I imported them into Modo and used their awesome UV unwrapping tools to help layout the UVs. I brought them back into Maya just for a few small adjustments to the UVs and then finally importing them into Zbrush.


As I work in Zbrush, I find myself using just a handful of brushes. The Clay Tubes brush is great for adding or subtracting volume from the form. I find the Standard brush is better for making specific bumps or creases like in the folds of fabric or wrinkles in skin. Of course I also use the Move and Smooth brushes liberally. I've also been using several alphas I found online to sculpt pores and finer wrinkles. While it needs a lot of work, here's the sculpt so far:



Sculpting is so much fun. I wish I could just drop everything and work on this, but I have to keep pluggin away at my thesis. Hey. The sooner I finish my thesis, the sooner I can concentrate on this stuff right?