ZBrush with Michael Defeo

ZBrush with Michael Defeo

Over nine video lectures, film industry veteran, Michael Defeo, will teach you his techniques for modeling and sculpting in ZBrush, the leading modeling software. He will talk about the most efficient use of ZBrush's many tools, his tips and tricks for carving out forms, anatomy, and textures, and discuss all the other things that he thinks about when bringing 2D designs to 3D life! If you use ZBrush, this course is a must!

"ZBrush with Michael Defeo" consists of nine video lectures presented over 14 weeks.

Lesson Plan

Lesson 1 - From 2D to 3D

In this first lecture, I will give you some immediate insight into how I approach ZBrush. Overall, what I wish to get across is how you can use ZBrush as an artistic tool. We will familiarize ourselves quickly with the interface and major tools before getting to the real task at hand: translating 2D images into 3D. I will discuss the various ways in which we can break down a drawing in order to understand where and how to start the 2D-to-3D process. As a class-long project, we will be sculpting an elaborate bust of a character. For your first assignment, you will complete a default head with rough blocking of the forms. You will also create an image plane for reference art and import a few extra pieces of geometry to begin to build the character.

Lesson 2 - Image Planes

In this lesson, I will talk more in-depth about the various tools I use. We will finalize all the large forms of the sculpture, adding more objects to build up the hair and eyes. For the assignment, you will follow along with my sculpture and, using my techniques, add more pieces of geometry and refined sculpting work to your piece, which you had started in lesson one.

Lesson 3 - ZSpheres

Now, we will further refine the sculpture by working on the smaller forms that ride on the basic shapes that we have already established. We will explore anatomy in some detail and I will explain how ZSpheres work as we begin to use them on our project. This will give you ideas on how you can apply them in your own projects in the future. Lastly, we will start adding color to the sculpture to add more life and appeal. For your assignment, you will create sculpted elements with ZSpheres and further refine your piece from assignment two.

Lesson 4 - Color and Subtools

In this lecture, we will put in place all the separate objects we need for our character. We will explore color techniques and ideas, and how they apply to the appeal of a character. Also at this point we will examine facial anatomy and believable sculpted forms. We will discuss anatomy and its importance to your sculpture. As well, through the use of very specific, discreetly sculpted forms, I will demonstrate why good decision-making is so vital to creating a sculpture with purpose and direction. For your assignment, you will put in place all the remaining subtools on your piece from assignment three and add color to all parts. By the time you have finished this assignment, your sculpture should be more defined and show a clear direction.

Lesson 5 - Hair and Eyebrows

I will spend this entire lecture discussing hair, specifically hair and eyebrows. Hair can be a very tricky thing to sculpt, but I will show you all the tools and techniques you will need to prevent the hair on your sculpture from looking like rope, or worse, whipped cream! We will examine how to break hair forms up into multiple models in order to get everything to flow properly and represent what will eventually become real hair or fur in a film. Your assignment will be to correctly place and fully sculpt all hair models on your completed assignment four.

Lesson 6 - Cloth

I will dedicate this lecture to cloth. I will discuss and demonstrate all the little tools and techniques I use to get convincing fabric and detail. For your assignment, you will create clothes for your character from assignment five, bringing it near to completion.

Lesson 7 - Re-topology

In this lesson, I will talk about re-topology. Re-topologizing all or even parts of a model is a tedious but important part of the character development process. We will explore strategies for planning out the new topology, resulting in a much more easily sculptable mesh. This will allow us to do final cloth sculpting on the jacket. I will also discuss some ways to topologize the model for animation. I will talk about the ZProject brush and tool that will "shrink wrap" the new topology over the old. For your assignment, you will re-tolopologize the scarf and jacket pieces of your sculpture from assignment six, then add the detail back in, creating a cleaner, more sculptable mesh.

Lesson 8 - Refining Details

We are now close to finishing the sculpture. In this lecture, we will refine the shapes further and complete most of the final details on the eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. We will examine the entire sculpture to strengthen any weak spots and bring them up to the same level quality as the rest of the piece. For your assignment, using my demo sculpture as a guide, you will refine your work from assignment seven so that it is at the same level of detail as mine.

Lesson 9 - Posing and Asymmetry

In my last lecture, I will talk about finishing touches: after all the details are in place, we will breathe some extra life into the sculpture by adding Asymmetry and posing the model. I will demonstrate how to do this using layers, which is a great feature that you can use to help you with variations in your sculpting. I will also demonstrate the use of multiple tools and the Merge Visible tool. Upon completion of this final sculpture, I will talk about how to render still images and turntables, and export QuickTime movies. For your final assignment, you will now have a final model fully detailed with color from assignment eight. Using this sculpture, create a pose and asymmetry on layers.

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