Making of the Conall

Posted on 05. Feb, 2010 by admin in 3D GRAPHICS, 3D tutorials, TUTORIALS

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Introduction

About 18 months ago I was looking for some online workshop to learn how to sculpt digitally, I wanted some workshop which really teaches you sculpting and not how to control your program, you can learn it from manual, but sculpting itself is about skill and experiences. I found that well-known sculptor Alex Oliver (http://www.alexoliver.art.br) is giving workshop like that. He taught me basics of sculpting and completely overturned my attitude to modeling. I found that it’s much easier for me to block out very basic box mesh in standard 3d package and as fast as possible start working in ZBrush, create all forms and shapes in it. I have to thank Alex for that, because from that time I felt in love with sculpting and I found out that this is what I want to do. In the spring 2009 I’ve seen announcement at CGSociety, that they are preparing CGWorkshop with Zack Petroc (www.zackpetroc.com) about Character design and sculpting, I was excited. That was next level for me and I always admired Zack for his work and that was unique way how to learn from master. I must confess that that was my next overturn. Zack taught us how he’s working on his digital maquettes. During this workshop I’ve created this werewolf character called Conall and now I’ll tell you how he comes to life.

Technology

In the beginning I’ll explain what is digital maquette. Simply, it’s 3d design. It’s new approach how to develop movie, game and whatever character designs based on analog sculpture designs for movie industry, which are here for a long time. I think that is natural evolution of industry. Now it’s very simple and fast to convert drawn design into digital sculpture and it’s the biggest advantage is that’s easily adjustable. Can you imagine how much work is to change proportions of character in clay? In sculpting software it’s question of “few” clicks. So in conclusion, advantages of digital maquettes against analog approach are: speed, changeability, easy poseability, you can use it as a base for final production model. And of course when director wants to see your design in all angles and hold it in his hands, we have rapidprototyping. (Scott Patton, responsible for Avatar Na’vi designs, said that their are working only on 3d designs, no drawing character concepts in Legacy Effects now)

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