ZBrush as a Character Design Tool - ZBrush Creature Design: Creating Dynamic Concept Imagery for Film and Games - page 59

The last main device I employed was the use of diagonals, often offset to one another to build a degree of
dynamism into what was becoming a very static picture. These diagonals would also help lead the viewer's
eye to my focal points. The line of the sword and arm combined with the inward tilt on the fan all help lead
to the White Fox's face. The same is also true of my hair design for this character. Not only do the two main
points symbolize fox ears, but they also angle toward the face.
In the case of Holmes, having him bent forward dramatically angles him away from the body of the White
Fox. His arm matches the angle of his back to really sell this thrusting, intent pose, and the long line of his
opium pipe leads to his face, which is the secondary point of focus for the picture. A late addition to the
painting was the drifting cherry blossoms, which are also angled to create more energy to the picture, rather
than just having them drift vertically from above. Once all these elements were in place I slowly started to
work up the detailing and used color and lighting to build upon the compositional effects.
ZBrush to Photoshop Design Process
In this topic we will use a variety of tools and techniques. ZBrush will be the core program used in all the
tutorials. In many lessons, we will take our models to Photoshop for a final painting pass to help “sell” the
character. Oftentimes you will want to work out the overall shape of a character in 3-D from all angles, then
pick a dramatic angle to render in Photoshop with color and atmosphere. This allows you to show a director
or art director the character both as a sculpture and as a dramatic living being as they may look on film.
Figure 1-51 shows a character in both grayscale and a painted presentation.
This is standard practice in concept design for many artists today. The benefit of using ZBrush to generate
a base on which to Photoshop paint is that you have a consistent base model that can be further edited in real
time for the director. New views are easy to generate, and most importantly, when the design is approved,
the 3-D model already exists and can be passed on to departments and then fed into a production pipeline.
Figure 1-51: Character as grayscale and painted