digital painting with photos

I was about to start another zbrush tutorial today when I saw one on using photos in digital painting.  This is something I have tried a few times with mixed results so I thought I would do this one first.  I am still roughing out my idea but I thought I would post what I have so far.  I am thinking I want it to be a castle by the water with crystals growing out of it.  I haven't decided where I want the castle yet though.

zbrush guy

So I am about as far as I am going to take this one, tomorrow I am thinking I will start the next tutorial.  It turned out all right though I found it difficult to model the eyes right.  I am also not thrilled with the facial structure, I am pretty sure it must be wrong in places.  The point of this though was not to make a masterpiece but instead to just get used to using the tools and interface in zbrush.  I find exercises like this to be useful sometimes because it gives me the opportunity to process what I have learned as well as a safe place to experiment and make mistakes.  I still have a lot to learn but I think this turned out OK.

messing around before I start my next tutorial

So I thought I would play with the tools in zbrush that I have learned so far.  I mostly just wanted to see what I could make and I was not to concerned with accuracy at this point.  It is far from done but I figured I would upload what I have.

I have also spent some time with the program procreate on the ipad.  Here is one of my first attempts at a portrait.  It is surprising the amount of detail possible, but I am still rather clumsy drawing with just my fingers.  The reference photo is one I just randomly selected from pintrist.

Color

I added some color today but I still don't know the tools well enough to get the texture and blending quite right.  Oh well, for my first time using zbrush I think it is turning out rather good.

busy day zbrush post

So today was something of a hectic day for me so I didn't get as much time as I usually do to watch digital tutors tutorial videos and play with zbrush.  All I did was a little fun with trying to pose this character.

day 4 zbrush

I once had a teacher who told me that one of the ways you can tell an amateur from a pro is that when an amateur learns something they try to use it for everything where as a pro knows the proper time to and way to use it.  At the time he was referring to Photoshop filters but I think it applies to a lot of digital tools.  Anyway today was texturing the skin and I may have gone a bit overboard, but that is how we learn.

zbrush day 3

so today I was just adding detail to this zbrush character and continuing to follow the tutorials from digital tutors.