Project #4 - ZBrush Head

This week, we had to familiarize ourselves quickly with ZBrush, the 3D sculpting software, and the best way to do that is to plunge right in. To that end, our task was to create a simple bust, with recognizable features such as eyes, nose and mouth. 

It could be something completely out there like a dragon, so as to not tread on every aspiring character artist's dreaded nightmare - the 'uncanny valley'. But I figured, where's the fun in that?

I love sculpting, and while I have no designs to work on characters, I can't deny there's something incredibly compelling about the second-hand knowledge of anatomy we absorb just from this process. Repeat it a hundred times, and you might get hundred different results where your character looks completely different each round, but you'll be able to name every muscle and bone that comprises our human head.

I started with a sphere, and shaped it to have the slightly squarish features of a strong-jawed man. 

Then I pulled out the ears, the neck and the shoulders, and started carving out the basic details of the ear, and strengthened the shape of the jaw a bit.

Then I boiled down the rest of the muscles of the face. Instead of adding features to the head, I removed elements of the mesh to make way for the shapes themselves. It's like what Michelangelo said about David: 'I created a vision of David in my mind and carved out everything that was not David'.

The mouth was hard, and I'm still not sure I managed it. I suspect, though, that a woman's mouth would be much harder to work with.

I didn't want to focus overly much on the eyes, so I just left them as blank orbs. 

The hair, too, is simple brush strokes. I was going for a younger, less stern look but them's the breaks, I suppose. I'm still not entirely familiar with character sculpting, but I did get a good, long look at ZBrush and how it works, so... task accomplished?