Human Skull Exercise
I looked at these six pictures and labelled where i think the areas of the skull would be placed. It is pretty messy but allows me to see where all the areas are labelled.
I did this labelling in class, this is what i used to help label the other exercise. Knowing how the skull look and works will help me in creating a skull.
In this image is have labelled this image of the skull from the side and front profile in more detail.
Female vs Male skull
Slope of Frontal bone
Slope of Frontal bone
The Slope of Frontal bone is different between Male and Female as the male Slope is more slopped where as the female is more angled.
Supercilious Arches
On the male the Supercilious Arches there is a V shape and is his eyes look shrunken into the skull. Where as the female the Arches is smooth and flat.
Mental Eminence
The Mental Eminence chin is larger on a male rather then on a females skull.
Gonial Angle
The angle on the Male's skull is a lot larger and closer to a right angle then the females skull which is almost a smooth corner.
Sculpting the nose
First of all i needed to understand the structure of the nose. Diagrams like the one below help me understand this
Creating my nose took a while i had to use multiple brushes to create the shape. The reference for my nose was based of my classmate who was sitting next to me.
Different noses
Everywhere you look everyone has different noses some have big noses and some have small noses. The appearance of someones nose can depend on many different reasons. These reason can be: Age, sex and gentics
The image above shows four different noses. A,B,C and D. Noses A and C allow you to see the transition between the bone and the cartilage. This transition is what determiners the shape of the nose. B and D have a clean transition between the bone and cartilage.
Female and male noses are different as well. Female noses tend to be a lot smaller due to the fact there skulls are smaller. There nose has a curved shape. Where as men's noses tend to be bigger and have a straight shaped nose. However like i said the shapes tend to change depending on other factors as well. The image above just shows the standard "Perfect" nose for each sex.
Noses do tend to be different depending on the sex of the individual. Female noses tend to be a lot smaller then male noses. There noses tend to be pointing upwards. Where as the male nose's tends to be much larger and not as pointy.
Due to the fact that noses and ears are always growing, when you get older your nose tends to droop down. This is why when you look at an old person there nose tends to be larger and pointed to the floor.
This nose is the one i will go ahead with for my final piece.
A different style of nose
I created a nose of an old person to allow me a chance to create a different style and test my creative skills.
Using this man as reference i was able to create and old style nose.
I probebly will not use this one as my final nose.
I then brought out the nose a lot more using the standard brush.
I then made the nostrils bigger and brought them out to the side aswell
I began by creating the simple nose shape.
I then made the nose more pointed. I also added nostrils i did this by pressing alt which reverses the standard brush.
This is the final image in this one i have brought the nostrils out and made it more pointy to to create the final look.
This is my model on sketchfab. This will allow you to view my model.
Sculpting the Mouth
I draw over all the area of the mouth with a different colour to allow me to understand its structure.
There a many different types of lips these are just a few examples.
The chin is very important to creating the shape of the mouth. Like all the other body parts the shapes can be different from person to person. But understanding the shapes and how they can be different is very important.
This is what my face ended up looking like. onc the mouth was complete.
Here is a video of my face being moulded. I used many the move and standard brush to help me mould the face.
I began by drawing the outline of the lips using the dam standard brush.
I then brought out the chin with the standard brush.
I extruded the chin out a little bit to make it pointy.
Then using the move tool i brought out the chin and reshaped the lips.
Finally i brought up the chin and made the lips smaller.
This is my final model of my mouth, on sketch fab. Feel free to look around!
Sculpting the Ears
Here is an image that I coloured over to label all the different areas of the ear.
There are also many different types of shapes of ears. These ears can be different depending on certain factors, the main one being genetics.
Cauliflower ear become apparent in fighters and rugby players due to damage in the persons ear. creating a cauliflower look which is where it gets its name from. However i will not be modelling any of these ears as there would be no point as i want to try and make a fully healthy ear.
I began by masking the whole sphere and leaving a little area in the basic shape of an ear clear. I then extruded the ear out.
I then began to clear out the centre of the ear using the standard brush.
Using the standard brush again, I began to curve out the Helix.
I then carved out the Antihelix are of the ear.
I smoothed out the area that i have carved out
I began to create sharper edges edges
I cut out the helix to make it deeper and focused alot more on the anti helix bringing out its shape further.
The ear is beginning to come together now as i just began to use the standard brush and then smoothing it to create a smooth ear.
I really brought out the anti helix now using the standard brush. I also used the Move brush and changed the shape of the ear as i didnt like it before.
I carved out the area below the helix to create an overhang.
The Helix has been carved out now.
I changed the shape of the ear again and using the standard brush and smooth brush i began to focus on the Tragus as i did not feel like i had worked on it enough.
Here is the final ear. I carved out the back of the ear, this part i struggled with.
Full Video
This video shows all the images above but in a full video form.
Here is the sketch fab of my ear. Feel free to have a look!
Eye
I labelled all the area of the eye. The names on the right have been marked with a colour that is then highlighted on the image.
Female and Male eyes
I drew a diagram showing how the eye sits in the socket.
Female and male eyes do not differ that much. Male eyes tend to look like they are sitting deeper into the skull.
Eye Diagram
The image above shows a diagram of the eye within the socket. It shows that they eye sits high in the socket. It also shows the eyebrow hanging over above the eye. It is important to understand how the eye look so you know what you are making.
I began by making a crater in my sphere and placed another circle in the middle of it.
I then drew around the second sphere.
I then continued to draw over and around the sphere.
I began to get the top eye lid to move further over the eye ball.
I made the eye lids thick and then began to create the eye brow.
I smoothed out the eye brow.
Now i am trying to add in detail and trying to play around with it to make it look realistic
I then sharpened all the edges and added in a little more detail like the bags under the eye and I tried to add a few wrinkles.
I added a very simple nose to give the eye an authentic look.
I didn't like how the eye brow caved in before like a ledge so I lifted it up and brought it back down on a narrower edge.
I then added thickness to the top eyelid. To add a crease to the Eyelid I used the Dam Standard brush to make a crease.
I then added thickness to the bottom eyelid using the standard brush and smoothing it.
Here is my final image of the eye, I am very pleased with how it turned out as this is the sculpture I struggled with the most.
This is the video showing all my work on the eye.
This is the image i used as reference whilst making my eye. I used the right eye as the one i was having a look at.
This is my eye on sketch fab, feel free to have a look!
Villain Sculpture
Mood board
Hre is a mood board I Mae showing examples of villains that I would like to take features from
Kratos the character from the PS4 game God Of War Series. Kratos has a lot of features I would like to base my Villain around.
I began with a face template and added structure to the nose by using the standard brush, I also began to bring out the mouth.
I began to add fat to the cheeks
I continued to work on the cheeks.
Using the standard brush I began to bring out the chin
Using the Dam standard brush I began to sharpen out the cheeks and the area on the chin.
I then created the eyes. I started by using the standard brush and building up the areas around the spheres to eventually create a top eyelid. I also began to add the the lower eye lid. This consisted of building the area up then smoothing it out to make a flat area.
To create the eyes of my character i did what i said above. However, the large part of making the eyes was using the dam standard tool to cut a small dent into the eye helping highlight a crease. Also to create the eye brow I Masked out the eyes and used the move brush to move down the brow without effecting the rest of the eye.
Using the Standard brush i was able to build up and smooth the area under the eyes to create a good crater shape. Using the dam standard i was also able to highlight the edges of the bottom eyelid.
I then worked on adding layers to the eye brow to add thickness to it with the standard brush.
The head template began with this basic ear shape.
I then reshaped the ear and using the standard brush i carved into the ear.
Using the same process as above i carved out the ear further.
I then finalised the ear by smoothing out all the areas
I then added detail to the neck by using the standard brush
This is a diagram showing the diffrent areas of fat on a persons face.
This is an image of my face just before i added all the final detail.
This is the final image of my head once i had added all the final minor details like wrinkles and scares.
Here is more angles of my face. I am certainly happy with how it ended up.
In this video it shows the full breakdown of my sculpture. It shows the sculpting and the texturing at the end.
Here is the texture i painted onto my face. This was along process as the image i used was not the correct size so i had to completely resize and change the image.
This is the image I used to paint onto my sculpture. I could not apply the whole thing at once, this is because the size did not match. So what I did was I had to use different parts of the image and apply it to each part of my model.
This is my current model. There is a few things I need to add at this point for example bringing up the hair to add texture to it however apart from that is almost my complete sculpture.
I then added height to the top of the head to act as a type of hair.
Using the layers i am able to record myself manipulating my sculpture. What this means is i am able to move the area i manipulated into different states.I can create as many of these as i want.
Action Unit with FACTS
FACTS - Facial Animation Coding System.
A system of defining facial movements and their appearance on the face. Originally conceived by Carl-Herman Hjortsjö. But developed by Paul Ekman and published in 1978.
Here is a table showing all the Action Units. Each action unit can be put into a group of multiple AU's which then can create a pose or animation. For example, Disgust would include 3 Action Units: AU9, AU15 and AU16.
This image shows an example of the muscles moving to create a face showing the emotion of disgust. On the top of the image it show all the Action units needed to create the face.
Here is a video of me creating an Action Unit.
Here is a video of me using the AU i made. For some reason the recording was showing the previous position of the AU. However, this video is here so you can get an idea of the Actions i created.
Emotions
This is a video of me making the emotion of sadness in zbrush.
I took screen shots of all the face i was able to make, due to some not exporting properly. In this image it shows Sadness. This is the combination of AU 1, AU 4 and AU 15.
This image is showing Anger. Anger is amde with the combanation of AU 4, AU 5, AU 7, AU 23.
This image shows the emotion of fear. The combination that creates this emotion is AU1, AU2, AU4, AU5, AU7 and 20.
This emotion is content. The combination that is needed for this one is AU6, AU12 and AU 15
Issues whilst exporting
Whilst exporting the file to maya i was having any issues. The model was not appearing in the maya file. I kept on trying different methods but it just would not work.
SOLUTION: The reason why the file was corrupting was because there where too many layers and the computer just could not process that many layers. I had 24 layers whilst it was not working. I then reduced the layers down to 9. This then worked. This meant i had to create different files dedicated to different emotions. This however meant that i could not create an animation with multiple emotions and expressions. This meant i had to create animation with only one emotion.
In this video i show how to export the file into maya.
Workload within Maya.
in the video it shows the workload within Maya. I have exported the files from Zbrush, which i showed in the previous video. In this video i use the layers from zbrush to animate the face. I also set key frames to complete the animation.
This is the face that i ended up with. This is the face of disgust.
Final Renders
This a render of the face when it is straight on just as the standard face.
This is possibly the best render i have got. I tweaked some of the render settings and ended up with this image. After making this one i struggled to recreate it as i could not remember the settings, Rendering is certainly something i need to improve on so i can always create renders like this one.
This is a extremely quick animation i rendered out.
These where the only expressions i was able to export to maya. Some of the action units would not export to maya correctly. So i created the expressions within z brush which is show above.
Here is a longer render that i made. I struggled to create a good render with the lighting in this sequence but i wanted to make a longer animation that shows the face moving for a longer period.
I uploaded the final model i made and uploaded it to sketchfab
My Thoughts
Overall, i really enjoyed using Zbrush. I enjoyed how the program worked and how relaxing and easy it was. I also enjoyed the way you can go through the history of your work and see how the sculpture has come on since I first started.
By far Zbrush is my favourite program so far.
The area that i struggled with however was when i had to move the sculpture into maya. Some of the AU would not export properly. I also learnt that i need to research and understand Arnold render a lot more then i do now. So this is something i can improve on.