Total Beginner To Zbrush

“ZBrush’s brush set is For all of you out there
arguably one of its who have heard of,
most powerful but are unfamiliar with,
features, along with ZBrush then this new
its ability to handle 7 part tutorial series
truly staggering by Wayne Robon is
polygon counts” for you. The Total

Beginners Guide to
ZBrush is an excellent
starting point to get
you into the world of
ZBrushing
Zbrush The Total Beginners Guide to
Created In:
ZBrush
Section Title
In this series of 7 articles, I was asked to
produce a beginner’s guide to Zbrush which
assumed that the user does not know a whole
lot about the program or how to use it. These
articles aren’t meant to take the place of either
the help files, or proper training, but should give
you an excellent starting point to get you into the
world of ZBrushing.
In this series we will be working our way through

the basic process of creating a creature bust,
taking it to completion by the last article (Fig01).
We will be starting with a basic Zsphere base
mesh that we will create ourselves and we’ll
use this as our starting point for sculpturing and
finally adding texture to. The reason I’m splitting
the full project into 7 parts is that we can take it
at a beginner’s pace and cover as much ground
as possible for people totally new to Zbrush.

(Plus you’ll end up with a finished digital sculpt
that will give you the confidence to approach
you own projects in a similar manner.)
I will be assuming that, at the very least, you

have read the basics of navigating in ZBrush
from the Zbrush help files. This will help us cut
down the length of the series a little and will
also make sure that as a new user you get the
most out of these lessons. I would like you to
practice what you learn in each lesson, either on
the model we are doing, or on one of your own.
It is important that you do this because the more
that you use Zbrush, the more confident and
at home with it you will become. Assuming you
know how to navigate, we’ll start by covering the
www.3dcreativemag.com page 87 Issue 030 February 2008

The Total Beginners Guide to Zbrush
basic concepts of some of the brushes etc that

we will be using, before creating our Zsphere
base mesh. In the next article we will start the
sculpting ‘proper’.
Basic techniques
Showing and hiding polygons
There are many reasons why you might want to
hide part of your geometry while working on it.
These range from simply wanting to concentrate
on a particular area you are working on, to
wanting to improve the performance of your
image at high polygon counts. To hide some
polygons, first take one of the default models
provided with Zbrush (a selection of them are
available on the splash screen) to test with.
Hold down Shift + Ctrl and drag over the area
you wish to keep. This will then hide everything
else on this tool. To remove more polygons
from this area simply do the same as before, but
before releasing your left mouse stop pressing
the control key. The previously green selection
box will now turn red to let you know that this
area will be hidden.
You can also have your selection changed from
the default box dragging type to a lasso type.
You can find this in some of the interface layouts
and also in the Transform Palette. This then lets
you select much more complex shapes than are
available with the default box drag type (Fig02
and Fig03).
Masking off areas

A mask can be described using a favourite
analogy of mine: just think of them like the
force fields on the star ship enterprise. When

you have an area masked off (or to continue

the analogy, ‘shields up’), that area will remain
unaffected by anything you do to the unmasked
area. There are literally tons of ways to make
masks in Zbrush, but the easiest is to simply
hold down you control key and use your brush to
draw the area you wish to be masked off. Masks
are an essential modelling tool, as it can often
be much easier to sculpt an area if other areas
you do not want to be affected are masked
off. For example, if you wished to close the top
eyelids on a head model, you would simply draw
a mask over the bottom eyelid so that when
you used the move brush, the bottom lid would
remain unaffected (Fig04).
Brushes
ZBrush’s brush set is arguably one of its most
powerful features, along with its ability to handle
truly staggering polygon counts. There is a
different brush for literally any job you might
think of and many of them have more uses
than they first seem to. Brushes are controlled
by the ZIntensity slider - with 0 being no effect
on the model and 100 being a massive effect
on the model - and are used along with Zadd
(this makes the geometry be pulled outwards)
and Zsub (which pushes the geometry into the
model). You can also change the way a brush
reacts with your fall off, which is controlled by
your focal shift.
Which stroke you chose from the Stroke menu

can vastly change what a brush will do when
you use it; as well as more standard stokes,

The Total Beginners Guide to Zbrush
there are also a selection of scatter strokes and
a drag rectangle one. When used in conjunction
with ZBrush’s different alphas, you can do just
about anything. You can make and import your
own brushes if you want to, but to be honest
the ones that come with Zbrush are pretty damn
good for 95% of the sculpting jobs you will do,
if used correctly. I would recommend simply
messing round with the brushes on a subdivided
Polysphere for a while to get used to the feel.
There are so many options that it is impossible
to cover them all here, but as with everything in
Zbrush, if you are not sure what something does
just hover over it, press the Control key and a
nice box will come up outlining what it is and
what it does.
There are some brushes that it is really

important to know about from the get go.
The smooth brush is one you will use a lot; it
smoothes out areas you are working on to help
you get the surface to your digital sculpture
that you want without any nasty bobbling on
it. It smoothes the transition between adjacent
polygons, but really that’s just a complex way of
saying ‘it does what the name implies’. We will
be covering the difference between some of the
brushes as we progress through this series.
Move Brush Vs Move tool

This confuses new users quite a lot, so I thought
it best to cover it in this article. There are two
sorts of ‘move’ in Zbrush: a move brush, which
when selected will move areas of your model
according to what stroke type, alpha ad falloff
you have and a transform move, which uses
action lines. There are also scale and rotate
transforms as well, but we will go into those
later in the series. For most sculpting jobs you Zbrush, using Zspheres to quickly rough out a block out your base mesh. They are also
will probably use the move brush found in the basic base mesh that will give us somewhere used for Zsphere rigs and are part of the core
brush menu, so experiment with it (like the other to start. Although you could obviously import concepts of Zbrush. A Zsphere is a two-tone
brushes) for next time and we’ll take things a base mesh polygon modelled in a separate sphere that is used in a few different workflows
further (Fig05 and Fig06). package, it is important to get to grips with the in Zbrush such as retopology and Zsphere rig
very basics of Zspheres early on if you are to posing. Making a base mesh will save a lot of
The Birdman Project gain total confidence in using Zbrush in the time (as well as space in this series), so as such
Part 1 the sphere base mesh long term. Zspheres are a special type of tool in we’ll be using them (Fig07).
First we’re going to create a base mesh in Zbrush that enable you to quickly and effectively

To create our base mesh, pick the two-tone
sphere from your tool menu and press ‘X’ to
activate X symmetry (Y & Z can also be used
to switch those types of symmetry on and off
as well). Symmetry means that everything
we do on one side of the model automatically
happens on the other side as well, saving us
time. As a symmetrical sculpture can often
look characterless, we will be adding some
asymmetrical detailing later to help to give the
digital sculpture a sense of ‘life’ and ‘being’.
However, at the early stages of this article we
will be keeping it symmetrical to make our job of
sculpting it a bit easier (Fig08).
Draw a Zsphere onto the canvas as shown.

Then, by lining up the two brush icons at the
top of it, draw another. You will notice that when
they are totally aligned they turn green (you in the image). Set your draw size very low when when you move a Zsphere you will be affecting
can also use the move tool at this point to move dealing with Zspheres as this makes things a more than the one you may want to, so it makes
things into position so it matches what you see whole lot easier. A larger size brush will mean things less confusing to have a very small brush
size (Fig09).
Now we want to draw another Zsphere on each

side, but we only need to draw one because the
X symmetry will mirror our actions on the other
side. Next, draw in your neck sphere and use
your move brush to pull it up a bit. By holding
down the Shift key you will now be able to click
on this neck sphere and add another that is the
same size. After doing this, pull it up a little as
shown before finally drawing one for the head
(Fig10 and Fig11).
Save this, as later in the series we will need this

rig to demonstrate one of the ways of posing
our models using Zspheres (Fig12). If you now
scroll down you tool palette, you can go down
to the adaptive skin and you can preview the
base mesh by pressing either ‘A’ or the ‘preview’
button. We can change the way that ZBrush
generates mesh by using the settings below.
(Be sure to experiment with this yourself to get
comfortable with how they work). This will create
an Adaptive skin base mesh that is no longer
linked to our initial Zsphere rig. It is now a set
of polygons and each set of Zspheres has been

give its own polygroup that you can see using
the ‘frame’ button (Shift + F also turns this on
and off by the way) (Fig13).
In the next article we will start to sculpt on our

base mesh and begin the process of making
it look more like a digital sculpt and less like a
group of polygons. Your ‘homework’ before the
next article is to mess around with your new
base mesh and subdivide it a few times (found
in the geometry part of the tools panel). Try
out some of the brushes and hopefully you will
start to feel a bit more at home in preparation
for next time. But make sure that you keep your
adaptive skin tool (by saving in the Tool palette)
and also your Zsphere rig for later use later in
the series.
See you all in Part 2!
Wayne Robson
For more from this artist visit:
http://www.dashdotslash.net
Or contact:
wayne@dashdotslash.net
“When moving areas For all of you out there
such as limbs and who have heard of,
other body parts, it’s but are unfamiliar with,
always best to use long ZBrush then this new
flowing movements 7 part tutorial series
with your mouse” by Wayne Robon is

for you. The Total
Beginner’s Guide to
ZBrushing
The Total Beginner’s Guide to Zbrush
Created In:
ZBrush
Introduction
In the last article, after giving a very basic
overview of some of the main features of
ZBrush, we made our basic Zsphere base
mesh. So in this section we will continue with
the project by taking this base mesh and starting
to sculpt it. This part of the series will introduce
you to some of the common brushes used in
ZBrush for low and medium resolution detailing
(Fig01).
Modelling
First of all we need to make sure that we move
some of the vertexes around on our base mesh.
This will allow us to make sure that we have
resolution where we need it, as opposed to
where we don’t. As the polygon count increases
by a multiple of 4 each time we subdivide
our model, we need to bear in mind that it is
important not to waste polygons where they
aren’t going to be needed. So we start off by moving some around the

eventual eye area, using the move brush set to a size of ‘1’. It’s important
to make sure that we do in fact have X symmetry enabled by hitting the ‘X’
key. This allows us to move the exact vertex we want, without having to
worry about interfering with others that we don’t want to touch.
Next we move some vertexes around the shoulder, neck and

sternocladomastoid area so that we have the geometry flowing in the
direction that we need it to be as we continue with the digital sculpture.
This is an important step as it stops us having to go into very high polygon
counts where it’s not needed and allows us to save some of those
polygons for the final detailing. We can also do some very basic changes
to the shape of the head, and get things so that it looks at least vaguely
human-esque (Fig02).
www.3dcreativemag.com page 88 Issue 031 March 2008

Zbrush The Total Beginner’s Guide to
At this stage I wanted to shorten the neck a

bit, so I selected the Move tool (not the Move
brush, the Move tool which can be found on
your toolbar or in the transform menu), and
with X symmetry still enabled, hold down the
Shift key and draw in an upwards direction to
just a bit above the collarbone. This will draw a
mask for us on the area that we do not wish to
affect. It will also automatically blur this mask
to help smooth the transition of our moves.
When moving areas such as limbs and other
body parts, it’s always best to use long flowing
movements with your mouse (where possible).
The reason for this is that if you use a series
of short strokes, you can end up with both an
irregular looking posed area and loss of rhythm
in the pose itself (Fig03).
Now we need our action lines to be in place

before making any moves on our geometry at the side) and hold Shift as you draw slightly by hitting Ctrl+D. Make sure that you have
all. An action line has a line with 3 circles drawn above the top of the head. Press ‘X’ to turn off the Standard brush selected and the default
upon it; if you drag by the edge of a circle it will your symmetry for a moment and, by clicking ‘Dots’ stroke type. Hold down Shift and draw
move the circle itself into a new position (moving and dragging on the centre circle, move it so in the basic shape of the eye holes in a human
the centre circle will move the whole action line). that it is now in the very centre of the geometry skull as shown in the image. As this isn’t a
If you drag from the centre of any circle it will when looking from the front. You can now human bust, we do have a certain amount of
affect your geometry using whatever transform gently move the neck down a bit and press ‘X’ room for interpretation. However, I would say
tool you have active at the time. As such again to turn symmetry back on. After making that it’s always a good idea to have a number
you can use either the Move, Scale or Rotate sure that you are satisfied, press the Edit button of human references for both the skull and
transform tools with an action line. on your toolbar to exit the transform tool. muscles handy, as this helps to make your
sculpt more believable. Just because we’re
So start by drawing your action line from just We are now ready to subdivide our model creating something from fantasy doesn’t mean
above your masked area (making sure the line 3 times by using either the Divide button in that we should ignore the rules of anatomical
starts in the centre of the neck if looking from the geometry section of the Tool palette, or construction! (Fig04)

Now click once on an empty part of the canvas
to invert the mask, switch to the Move brush and
pull the eye areas into the head a little. Once
done, hold down Ctrl and drag on an empty part
of the canvas to remove the mask completely.
We can temporarily change to the Smooth brush
when we have most brushes active by holding
down the Shift key - do that and lightly smooth
out the transitions around the eye areas a
little. For those of you that find that the revised
Smooth brush in ZBrush 3.1 feels a bit different
to the older one in V3 and V 2, I’ll provide a link
to my own version, which works the same as
the old Smooth brush. To set it as your default,
simply open it up (or put it into your Start-up
folder in the Brushes folder, and hold down the
Shift key and click on it from the brush palette
in ZBrush). It will now be your default Smooth
brush whenever you hold down the Shift key.
Should you need to, you can add any number of
custom, alternative brushes this way (Fig05).
Hold down the Ctrl key again and draw in a

circle that will eventually become our eye holes.
Don’t make them too big at this stage as we will
be doing a lot of work on them in the following
articles. Switch to your Standard brush, press
the Alt key and draw to push the geometry
inwards as shown (Fig06).
Now remove the mask you did before and gently

move the eyes so that they are a little bigger.
Again don’t worry too much about them at this
stage as we will be working on them more as we
progress (Fig07).
Having said that, you will want to move the

centres of each eye now, so that they have a
curve to them and the eyeball will be a better
fit once we once we add it. You can do this
best by holding down the Shift + Ctrl keys and
dragging over the area you wish to keep around
the eyes. It’s much easier to add a curve to the
eyes by looking from the inside behind them and Shift + Ctrl and click on a blank area of canvas when you are done. If you find at any point that
above. (Do make sure that you have ‘Double’ to show everything again. Quickly mask off the a mask has a little too hard a transition you
on in your Tools >> Display section by the way.) eye area and pull the eyes further back into the can further blur it by holding down Ctrl and left
(Fig08) head (if need be). Be sure to clear the mask clicking somewhere on the mask itself (Fig09).

Now taking the Clay Tubes brush, start to beef
up some areas such as the jaw bone, cheek
bones and eyebrows by running it in smooth
strokes over these areas. A ZIntensity setting
of between 10-13 should do nicely; adjust your
brush size as needed. Smooth these areas
out using the Smooth brush before continuing
- you aim is to keep the forms that you have
just created, but lessen any sharp transitions
between different areas of the face. For those
of you with traditional sculpting experience, this
stage can be thought of as similar to setting up
the planes of the face, although in this case we
are only adding flatter areas of digital clay where
we need them to define our main forms.
Holding down the Alt key, use the same brush to
hollow out the cheeks area slightly and smooth
this out a little again. We now want to beef up
the nose and mouth area, as we will be adding
a beak at a later point. As you will have no Using the Move brush, make sure that the flat. The human face is not flat! The mouth
doubt noticed by now, at this stage we are only mouth isn’t flat from the side and he doesn’t area is like a flattened horse shoe shape. While
concerned with getting our large shapes and look like he has been hit in the face with a it’s outside of the remit of this series to go into
forms blocked out in a fairly rough way. This shovel. One of the main issues that people new human anatomy in detail, I would urge those
enables us to go back over these areas and to ZBrush have when doing a human-esque new to ZBrush to (at the very least) have plenty
refine them later (Fig10). head, is that they make the front of the face too of references handy. This is also a good time to
do some last major form changes, if need be.
In the next article in this series, we are going to
start making this model look a bit more pleasing
to the eye and continue to block out the torso.
Don’t worry if you find it takes you a long time to
complete this section, getting your initial forms
correct is the most important part of a digital
sculpture because without it, no matter how
hard you try later it will still not look ‘right’. Your
homework for next time is to practise what you
have learned so far in the first two articles of
this series and try and find plenty of reference
photos on Google of human heads and torsos.
If you have access to an anatomy book, that is
even better. See you all next time.
Wayne Robson
Or contact:

“if it’s to look believable For all of you out there
then it’s vital to get who have heard of,
the forms correct but are unfamiliar with,

before going anywhere ZBrush then this new
near the detailing 7 part tutorial series
stage.” by Wayne Robon is

for you. The Total
ZBrushing
Created In:
ZBrush
Introduction
Up until now in this series, we have been
creating what amounts to a fairly generic
medium-resolution sculpture that could be
turned into a whole host of different creatures.
The advantage of knowing h+ow to block out
common forms such as these is that each time
you sculpt something in ZBrush that is human
or ‘human-esque’, you will be refining what you
learned the last time you did something vaguely
similar. It is in this way that we improve as
digital sculptors. Making mistakes is a positive
thing, because without them we would never
learn and improve. So an artist who never
makes mistakes is an artist who never grows
artistically (Fig01).
Adding the Eyeballs…

Making Eyeballs from a
Sphere Primitive
As we have taken this model about as far as we
can in the eye area without the eyeballs being
there, it is time that we added some (Fig02).
These will help us when it comes to making sure
that the proportions of the eye area correct, and
they’ll also help us to sculpt the upper and lower
eyelids correctly later in the series. To add our
eyeballs we are going to use the default ZBrush
www.3dcreativemag.com page 75 Issue 032 April 2008

sphere primitive that is available in your tools separate SubTool. So look at the bottom of will move, with the other end acting as a pivot
menu by left clicking on your current tool. This the ‘SubTool’ section and click on the ‘Append’ point. By dragging by the edge of the centre
will bring up a pane that contains many other button. Once again, this brings up your pane circle you will be able to drag the whole action
primitives and tools (along with any others that with the other ZBrush tools in it. You should line itself into place. Clicking in the centre of
you have currently loaded into ZBrush at the see your sphere polymesh on the very top line, each circle works in a similar way. Clicking and
time). Select the sphere primitive and it should so select that and it will then be added to your dragging in the centre of either of the two circles
appear loaded into the viewport on its own. At current model as a SubTool. You will notice that on the ends of the action line transforms the tool
this time we can’t use this sphere because it is the size and position is all wrong at the moment, in a uniform way (depending on the whether
still a ‘primitive’ and not a polymesh that we can but don’t worry as we’ll be sorting that out next! the Move, Scale or Rotate is currently active).
sculpt (Fig03). Clicking and dragging on the centre of the
Our next big job is to resize and position this centre circle will transform in certain directions.
To make this primitive into a polymesh, simply eye in the correct place. Before we continue, So if, for example, you had the Scale transform
look at the very top of the tool menu and press let us recap again on how the transpose lines active with the action line vertically on the centre
the ‘Make polymesh3D’ button. This will then work for our transformation tools, such as Move, line of your model, and you dragged on the
generate your polymesh from the primitive Scale and Rotate. At the end of each line you centre of the circle at either end, it would scale
sphere and load it into the viewport in exactly will see a circle with another in the centre of the up or down the entire model in a uniform way.
the same position as the primitive was. So line. By left-clicking and holding down we can While dragging, using the centre circle would
it looks for the entire world as if nothing has drag the transform line into position by doing scale the model horizontally, but not vertically
happened! So now we have a sphere that we so on the edges of any of the circles. If you (Fig04).
are going to make into not one, but two eyes. drag by the ones on either end then that end
You may have noticed that the main model that
we were working on is also visible in the tools
menu near the top. If you click on this now then
it will once again become active in the viewport
and we can start putting the sphere into the right
place as one of the eyes.
Adding Them to the

Main Sculpt
First of all, go to your Tool menu and open up
the section marked ‘SubTool’; this is where
we will add the eyes, with each one being a

Make sure you have the sphere polymesh as
the active SubTool by checking that you have
it highlighted in the SubTool section of the Tool
menu. First of all, select the scale transform
tool and then left-click and drag an action line
outwards from the centre of the Sphere. (If you
hold down the Shift key at the same time you
can constrain it to the nearest surface and stop
it whizzing off backwards in the Z direction in
the viewport). Now, using the outer-most action
line circle, left-click and drag in the centre of
this circle and scale the sphere up or down, as
needed, to an approximate size that looks right
to you.
it’s perfectly normal for it to take a little while for eyelids into position over the eye. Use your
We now change to the Move transform tool. you to get used to them. (It’s much the same as painted masks (made by holding down the
You will notice that our action line stays in the switching from driving a right-hand car to drive a Ctrl key and painting where you wish it to be)
same place that we left it before we changed left-handed one - it takes a little time to adjust!) and get everything into the right place. Give
from the Scale transform tool to the Move Once you have your sphere in the right place yourself plenty of time; getting the eyelids into
transform tool – feel free to move your action you may need to resize it again to make sure it the correct position can take a little time when
line into a place that feels good to you. Now it is fits comfortably into place. you’re first starting out. Once you’re happy
a simple matter of moving the sphere into place, that they are in the right place, and the lids look
as our eye. Be aware that when you’ve just Using your move brush, and with your main correct (as shown), make your eyeball the active
started using action lines and transform tools, model active in the SubTool palette, move the SubTool. At the top of the tools palette you
will see a button marked ‘Clone’; press this to
make a copy of the eyeball, which will now be
in your tools pane but not active. Add this as a
SubTool, again by hitting the ‘Append’ button.
It will appear as if nothing has happened yet

because both eyeballs now share exactly the
same space. So open up the ‘Deformation’
panel and hit the ‘Mirror’ button to correct this.
You should have two eyeballs in your sculpt
now, so change back to your main SubTool
again, ready to continue.
Continuing with
Sculpting
Holding down the Ctrl key, paint a mask for the
clavicle (as shown), remembering that if you
hold down Ctrl + Alt you can paint to remove
an area from your mask (Fig05). Using your
Standard brush (with the default settings),
simply run it over the area to block this in.
Then smooth the bottom area of this where it
intersects with the chest area (Fig06).

We now paint another mask, this time to define
where the sternocleidomastoid muscle runs
from behind the ear (on a human) to the ends
of the clavicle beneath the bottom of the neck,
as shown. Depending on how well-built and
muscular your character is, you may also
want to add a mask for the tendon running
from the bottom part of the previous masked
area to the end part of the clavicle as well (the
sternocleidomastoid muscle splits into two parts
where it meets and joins the clavicle). Now
change to your Clay brush and select the first
round alpha (alpha number 01) and run it over
these areas with a ZIntensity of 50 and a size of
74 (Fig07 and Fig08).
Hold down your Shift key to take away any

sharp edges and lightly smooth the area you’ve
just done. Remember the idea is to soften these
areas, not to wash them out. Using the same
brush, lightly build up the back of the jaw area
(as shown) and remember to smooth things out
again a little afterwards. If you spot any other
areas that you feel could do with a very light
touch, feel free! Just don’t go mad; we’ll be
going back to the torso again later.
Blocking Out the

Torso
Again, I want you to mask off the areas
shown, as these will help us to define where
each muscle group will be and as such make
the job of blocking the torso out a bit easier.

Remember that because this is a series for If you now flip to the underside of your model
beginners, I’ve somewhat simplified the forms. and use the Move brush, you can start to add
The more advanced readers can feel free some shape to the pectoral area and correct
to change this area on their own sculpts to any mistakes before we continue onwards in the
something more complex if they want to (Fig09). next part of the series.
Once the masked areas for the deltoid are In Closing…

drawn on your ZBrush sculpt, use your Inflate Now we have our digital sculpt looking a bit
brush with a ZIntensity of 10 and a size of 54 more interesting (Fig12), in the next part we can
to increase the volume of them. For any areas start to refine him to some degree. Although it
that require a lot of volume to be added, such can be tempting at this stage to go crazy with
as the back where the shoulder blades are, use alphas and add masses of detail, I would urge
the clay tubes brush and smooth the area out restraint (using a straight jacket if need be!).
afterwards. This will save considerable time The main reason is that, as I’ve mentioned
when blocking out (Fig10). before in this series, if it’s to look believeable
then it’s vital to get the forms correct before
Next we need to add some volume to the going anywhere near the detailing stage. For
pectoral area of the chest, so for this we will use next time, practice all that you have learned so
a new brush: the ‘Magnify brush’. The magnify far and make your first sculpt of your own design
brush will magnify an area under the cursor using the things you have learned so far from
to help us add volume. In this case, we want this series. Catch you next time!
a ZIntensity of 25 and a size of 84 and a very
light tough. If you have too heavy a hand he
will end up looking like he’s taken way too many Wayne Robson
steroids, so be careful and remember to use the For more from this artist visit:
undo button! Smooth this area out, as shown, http://www.dashdotslash.net
and make sure that there is a slight indentation Or contact:
next to the upper part of the deltoid/clavicle wayne@dashdotslash.net
intersection area (Fig11).

“The head is not a beach For all of you out there
ball! This may seem an who have heard of
odd thing to say, but but are unfamiliar with
beginners usually treat ZBrush, then this new
the head as a large 7-part tutorial series
rounded shape with by Wayne Robson is
the face put on the perfect for you!
front, looking far too This complete
flat!” Beginner’s Guide to

you stuck into the
world of ZBrush-ing.
This month Wayne

brings us Part Four –
enjoy!!
The Total Beginner’s Guide to ZBrush
Created In:
ZBrush
Introduction
By this point we’ve got to the stage where we
have the more important things, such as the
head shape, eyes and part of the chest, blocked
in. So now it’s time to start the process of pulling
everything together. Hopefully you have been
practicing the steps that we’ve done so far
and have created your own characters, so you
should start to be feeling a lot more at home
with ZBrush by now. There is literally hundreds
of direction this model could take from this point,
from a design point of view alone. The beauty
of using such low resolution bases, such as
the one we made using Zspheres, is that we
aren’t walled into any decisions made during the
polygon stage of modelling.
We need to start moving on towards the back medium resolution forms. Any corrections I
Back to Modelling
area of the sculpture and start to roughly block leave towards the end, once the main design
Pick up your clay brush with no alpha active and
in the forms we need, before adding some and character has been nailed down. If any
Zadd set to 50. We’ll be using the ‘Dots’ stroke
details to make him look a little more like our areas are hard for you to get right then don’t
type and I’ll be stepping the brush size up and
final character. You will notice I don’t go into worry, as at the end of this series 3DCreative
down as I need to. Let’s start this session by
fine detail at this stage as I’m basically only will be making a free video of the modelling
adding some mass to the shoulder blades. As
concerned with the main forms, masses and sessions I did on this character available!!
this sculpt doesn’t have the benefit of arms to
tell us where they should be or orientated, we’ll
start by making them fairly neutral and we can
change the latter once he’s posed near the end.
Once you’ve beefed this area up, as shown, it’s
time to beef up the area between the shoulder
blades running up the neck and round to the
front. The Trapezius can be tricky to get right for
those without some anatomical understanding,
as it inserts into the top of the shoulder blade
and runs in a diamond-like shape up to the base
of the skull, and also wraps around to the front
of the Clavicle. I would strongly advise having
some sort of anatomical reference handy when
doing anything human- or animal-based. You
www.3dcreativemag.com page 86 Issue 033 May 2008

ZBrush The Total Beginner’s Guide to
cannot make up anatomy without some basis
in reality; if you do, it’s going to look bad! Every
monster or creature, no matter how fantastic or
ugly-looking, must have some basis in real-life
anatomy!
Beef up the Trapezius in the diamond shape

leaving a notch just below the neck for the 9th
vertebrae. Run your clay brush around the
shape of the Trapezius and make it attach to
the front of the clavicle. Add some mass to the
very base of the skull, just above where it meets
the neck, and follow this around to the sides of
the skull before smoothing the areas out a little
(Fig.01).
Back to the Front

The head is not a beach ball! This may seem
an odd thing to say, but beginners usually treat
the head as a large rounded shape with the face
put on the front, looking far too flat! The sides of
a human skull are pretty flat indeed, so as our
creature has a basis in human anatomy we must
make sure that those areas are flattened. In
this case I also hollowed them out with the clay
brush, as shown, to add a less human feel to
him. Also add more mass to the arches, running out of shape. This should run from behind the
the length of his skull from the area where they ear (if he has any ears, that is!) to the end of
intersect the brow part of the skull. As a result the clavicle in the centre, below the neck. These
of changes to the head, pay attention that the basic landmarks help to keep your ‘human-
Sternocleidomastoid muscle doesn’t start to look esque’ digital sculptures looking a little more
realistic, although no one expects you to make a
masterpiece first time out (Fig.02)!
Facing Up
Add more weight to the cheekbones, lower chin
area and the fold of skin between the chin and
base of the neck. You ideally want him to look
almost as if he has a larger lower jaw than upper
one, as shown. Let’s isolate the head area to
make it easier for us to work on it undisturbed.
So, turn on the frame mode (a shortcut of Shift +
F toggles it on and off, by the way!), press down
Control + Shift and left-click on the head area of

the mesh. This will hide every other part of the
mesh (although it doesn’t affect other subtools,
such as the eyes). If you do the same shortcut
again, only this time outside your model, it will
reveal the previously hidden areas (Fig.03).
Using your Standard brush with its default

settings, carve a line into the face that will make
our mouth area and then start to build up the
lips. Add some mass to the upper and lower
eyelids and, to help make them look less like
‘holes in the mesh’ (although we’ll address that
a bit later), paint a mask by holding down your
control key near the outer edge of the bottom
lid and then adding some mass to the top lid
over this, to give us a nice demarcation line. Do
the same with the inside of the lower lid, near
the nasal, until it looks as shown in the image
(Fig.04).
Let’s use our move brush now to change the

shape of the head a little, especially in the
mouth area. Step down a few subdivision levels
and pull the edges of the mouth outwards a bit.
Then, from a side on view (remembering you
can hold down the Shift key to snap it into a (You can also blur the mask from the masking need it (Fig.06).
proper side on view), pull the mouth edges back section of the tools palette.) Using the move
a touch (Fig.05). brush again, pull the brows into an angry-looking Again, paint a mask over the eye socket area
position, as shown before unmasking the area. and then invert it by either going into the
Step back up your subdivision levels again and If you find the transition of the brow to the upper masking section of the Tool palette or by holding
paint a mask over the eye socket areas, then eye area a bit too harsh, use your smooth brush down the control key and left-clicking outside
blur this mask by holding down the Shift key on a lower subdivision level before stepping your model. Then, using a smaller move brush,
and left-clicking on part of the masked area. up again and smoothing out any areas that still start to pull the eyelids into a more pleasing

shape. We are looking for realism but also
something that helps the model to have some
personality. Smooth the transition from the lower
lid to the cheekbone out a bit, as skin stretches
over this area and the fat there. We want some
definition in his anatomy, but we don’t want him
to look anorexic (Fig.07)!
Mask off the lower jaw and make sure you are
totally masking the lower lip, and then pull the
upper lip down to meet it. As we are closing
the mouth he’s not going to need any teeth.
Then start to pull the almost-beak shape of the a lot at this stage in the modelling process. It’s more interesting until later on. Start by carving
front of his mouth area out, as shown. Do this not as harsh as the square-shaped clay tubes the area in and then add mass between these
in a combination of a side view and a ¾ view and less washed out than no alpha set at all, carved in areas, as shown, and smooth things
(Fig.08). as in the clay brush (when its set to its default) out as they travel towards the deltoid. Taking
(Fig.09). the Slash1 brush, carve in some lines, as
Back to the Chest shown, beneath the deltoid where the Pectorals
Select your clay tubes brush but change the Use this to beef up the front of the Deltoid and intersect under the deltoid (again, as shown).
alpha from its default to Alpha 01, which is the carve some indentations into the Pectoral area. The Pectoral muscles are in 5 strip-like sections,
1st round alpha. I save this out and have it set These striations aren’t technically “correct” and I often pull a line in near the armpit on
as a custom brush on my set up as I find I use it but they do help the chest area to look slightly the Pectoral area to help add a bit of interest.
Smooth these out a fair bit once done (Fig.10).
The nest bit is hard to describe but it will make

total sense in the video when you see it… On
the front of the chest and shoulders, carve some
light lines in using the Slash1 brush and then
smooth them out about 90% until they are barely
visible. These help the process of detailing later
on to look a little more real, and are done “by
feel” to a large degree. Go to the face and do
a similar thing, only this time you are carving in

stress wrinkles where the skin is stretching or
regularly moves. Only smooth them out 50% this
time. Use the images shown as reference to see
where I’ve added them and try to work out why
each set is in the place that it is (Fig.11).
The wrinkles and stress lines on the brow area

are worth special attention as they will change
from person to person, creature to creature and
from expression to expression. In some ways
they are a bit like a fingerprint. If, for example,
you put the wrinkles from Yoda’s forehead
and put them onto another creature, it not only
would look strange but it would also be obvious
they were Yoda’s wrinkles. Such character hair to clothing folds to adding some harsher more closely than he did at the start. As ever,
defining areas as these are best to sculpt to fit fine detail (as we are about to do) (Fig.13)! practice what you learned this session and the
the character or creature that you are doing and Take it down in size till it’s fairly small (there’s a previous ones on models of your own design to
not a “one size fits all” approach. If you do then certain amount of trial and error to this part so get as comfortable with them as you can. We’re
it will only end up with a string of fairly identical have your Control + Z undo keys ready till you going to do a lot of work next time so make sure
looking models with very little variety (Fig.12)! have it set the way you want!) and start to gently you are comfortable with the tools we’ve used
carve in fine lines over the top of the ones you so far before next month (Fig.14). Catch you all
Slashing Away… previously carved in, using the Slash1 brush. in part 5!
Change to your Slash2 brush; this brush is After carving in each ‘group’, smooth them out
rather special in that it not only slashes like the towards the ends until they fit in with the forms Wayne Robson
Slash1 brush but also makes one side of the of the model correctly. The effect is subtle but For more from this artist visit:
slash protrude while the other stays level. So, will help our end result a great deal. http://www.dashdotslash.net
as such, it’s a very versatile brush that many Or contact:
overlook – I use it on just about every model We’ve done quite a lot this session and he’s wayne@dashdotslash.net
and never cease finding new ways to use it from starting to resemble our final sculpt quite a bit

“…the better you know For all of you out there
your anatomy the who have heard of
more you can use it to but are unfamiliar with

bend and shape it to ZBrush, then this new
your will and create 7-part tutorial series
believable-looking by Wayne Robson is
models!” perfect for you!

This complete
you stuck into the
This month Wayne

brings us Part Five –
enjoy!!
Created In:
ZBrush
Introduction
Now that we have our forms blocked out from
the previous articles, we can now move onto
adding some finer details to help bring this bust
to life! Load up the model that we’ve been
working on so far and set the Slash2 brush as at least in passing for those of you unaware stress so that we can add folds in these areas.
your active brush, with the dots stroke selected. of it, is the pectoral muscles that fan out in 5 This isn’t a simple concept to grab at first and
sections from the clavicle (collar bone), all the comes with practice and observation. There’s
A Short Anatomical way down the sternum. In our model we will be no “short cut” to be totally honest and it’s
Diversion exaggerating these quite a bit to give a more something every organic artist is always striving
It’s time to start taking into account human interesting look to the chest area. As mentioned to improve (Fig.03)!
anatomy now, especially now that we are in the before in this series, the better you know your
detailing stage. While you can use a selection anatomy the more you can use it to bend and So start to hunt out areas where the skin will
of alphas on your model to give it some skin shape it to your will and create believable- stretch from one area to another, or be under
detail, the problem I personally have with this looking models (Fig.02)! stress, and use your Slash2 brush to add some
is that anyone with the same set of alphas as stress wrinkles to denote stretching skin. Areas
yourself will have a similar look to their models. Abreast of the that I added these wrinkles to include the area
So I prefer to detail by hand and use only default Situation where the 2 sections of the clavicle come
alphas available in ZBrush itself, for a couple of With your Slash2 brush active, start to make together, where the skin stretches near the
jobs here and there. The plus points of this are some very light lines where these 5 sections sternocladomastoid, and the centre of the neck.
that you end up with a unique look to your skin join to the sternum. Once done, wash them Now make some deeper slashes to show the
texture, and it’s also very good practice (Fig.01)! out again about 70% by smoothing out, holding different sections of the deltoid muscle. In most
down the Shift key. We need to start taking into humans this isn’t very visible, unless they’ve
One area of anatomy that I do want to cover, account where the skin will fold and be under done some quite heavy training. But in this
case, as it’s a creature we’re making up, we
are allowed to go as nuts as we like! After
essentially ‘dividing up’ the deltoid, smooth
things out again a little to help the forms to work
together (Fig.04).
Add now some slashes on the back of the neck

to help us give the impression of folding skin
under compression. We can work on these
further, although in the case of this model, as
it’s meant to be seen front on, we’d be doing
this only for practice. Add more light slashes to
denote the stretching and movement of the skin
down the spine area and around the shoulder
www.3dcreativemag.com page 125 Issue 000 Month 2007

blades. Try to imagine where the skin will be compressed or stretched.
Feel free to stand in front of a mirror and see how your own skin moves
as your body is in different poses. You may feel strange doing it at first,
but it’s surprising how often your own body can give you more information
than any anatomy book. You are your own ‘life model’ that’s available 24
hours a day, 7 days a week (Fig.05)!
Continue to work your way around the entire torso and neck area adding
these stress wrinkles until you’re happy that they look ‘right’. Take special
care in the area where the pectoral feeds under the deltoid, as you can
add some nice wrinkles and folds in this area.
Heads Up!
Now we’ve started to add some early details to the torso (and are by no
means finished with it yet!), we can also make sure that the head area is
just as detailed to keep things in balance. I personally prefer many times
to “nail” the head area – personality and looks-wise – as it gives me lots
of ideas and information as to what sort of look the body area needs. But
keep in mind that every artist works their own way to achieve the look that
they personally want as part of their style (Fig.06).
The first area I want to address to give the
character… well, more character, is the eyes.
At the moment they are a bit too wide open and
surprised, so use masks (as detailed earlier in
the series) close the eyes a bit to give him more
of a mean look.
One of my “secret tips” is to not only take

inspiration for eyes and ‘eye poses’ from
humans, but to also be sure to look at animals...
You’ll be surprised how much more ‘human’
an animalistic eye pose can make a character!
Hold down Shift + Ctrl and left-click on the head
area to isolate it (thus making things easier
for us to work with). Right now the face is still
effectively just a number of sections that do not
meld into one another at all and needs a fair bit
of work to tighten it up. So take your clay brush
with alpha 01 and start to melt the lower eyelid
into the cheekbones area a little more. Far too
often, sculpts (including my own) can end up
looking as a collection of facial parts taken from
a shelf, and not like a living breathing being.
This is often due to them not working in unison
and no effort being made to working out how
one part would affect the skin in another part.
So in this case the cheek bones have rather

taught skin, so this will naturally pull the skin a
little tighter over the bottom lids. This way we
won’t have as big a chance of large, droopy eye
bags (Fig.07)!
Switch to your elastic brush with alpha 27

selected and switch on “lazy mouse” by hitting
your ‘L’ key. Start to draw a line (while holding
down the Alt key) around the insides of the
upper and lower eyelid. We do this as a sort of
an illusion, to add some shadows and highlights
to simulate the look that you get by the many
complex forms in the eyelids. As this is a
beginners guide to ZBrush (added to which an
in-depth study of the eyes and eyelids would
take a long time and a lot more space!), on this
occasion we’ll use a number of optical illusions
and shortcuts. As you learn more about ZBrush
and digital sculpting, you’ll use these less often,
unless you are speed sculpting (Fig.08).
Drag some lines out from each corner of the eye

as this is always an area where skin is under
stress. We blink and move our eyes a lot in a
single day, so as a result the area is one of the
first to form wrinkles. Add a few lines above the
eye to let us make them into skin folds later on
in the sculpting process.
This time we’re going to use an alpha to help

us – it’s one we’ll be using a lot in the rest of
these tutorials and one I find very useful for skin
detailing! Alpha 58 is simply a number of wavy
vertical lines, but combined with the Freehand
stroke type and any of a number of the brushes,
and you have some instant fine wrinkles! So set
your ZSub to about 54 on your elastic brush and
start to drag out some fine wrinkles. Start with the eyes before moving on
to the area where the brow meets the nasal area (Fig.09).
Please make sure that you follow the direction of the skin. Skin, like a
tree, has a “grain” – go against it and it will give you nothing but badness!
However, work with the flow of the skin and the anatomy and you’ll get
mush better results each time. Work between the brow on the fine folds
there, as well as the main folds on the brow itself.

The details we’ll be adding from now onwards
can be hard to see in a screen capture, so I’ve
again changed to my favourite ‘B+W’ matcap
I made an age back. (I’ll make this available
along with the video once the series is complete.
One word of warning is that all Matcaps can
exaggerate the forms, so take care not to rely
on them too much for your sculpt to look good!)
When using Alpha 58 and a freehand stroke, try
to very slightly change angles and go over the
same stroke again. This gives a wonderful cell-
like, almost cross-hatching effect to the skin that
is easy to do and looks much more impressive
than it actually is to do. Later, we’ll go over the
entire sculpt’s head using this same technique,
so bare that in mind for a later article (Fig.10).
Mask off the nasal and mouth area and slightly

inflate around it to add more of a feeling of skin
folding over the edges of it. As he is a sort of a
‘birdman’, my idea was that this area would still
be somewhat hard, like the beak on a bird, and

so skin would fold around it. Using the Standard
brush, carve out some very wide and very
shallow curving lines to help with the main form
of the ‘beak’ area. These will not be very visible
in the images as I am talking about a very subtle
(but very important) look.
Unhide the rest of the body of the model and,

using the smooth brush, start to smooth out any
areas that you feel need either to be merged in
better with the surrounding anatomy, or that do
not work. Be ruthless: sometimes you have to
give up some part you like for the good of the
model (Fig.11)!
Now that we are getting towards the end of

this section of The Beginners Guide to ZBrush,
let’s make those spheres we’re using for our
eyes look a little better, eh? Take one of
the eyes and subdivide it to level 4 to give
us enough polygons. Then select alpha 12,
which is a sharp-edged round alpha, and the

Drag rectangle stroke with the Standard brush outlined what amounts to (for me) 38 minutes
Wayne Robson
selected (you can also use the layer brush for work. Although the parts we are to do in the last
this turned very low down). Using a ZIntensity two articles take up the same timeframe, they
of 14 and in ZAdd mode, drag this circle out in are much more repetitive and hence a lot easier.
Or contact:
the centre of the eye. I should warn you that the So practice what we’ve done so far and keep
chances of you getting this bang on the money experimenting!
first time are slim, so have your Ctrl + Z undo
shortcut keys handy! This gives us a nice effect
on the shape of the eye itself and provides us
with some nice highlights. Like a lot of things
in digital sculpting (and traditional sculpting),
subtle things can really help with the look of a
sculpture.
You are now free to either mirror it across using

either the method we used in one of the earlier
articles or even the subtool master plug-in that
is available free from Pixologic. But if you are
more confident you can simply ‘eyeball it’ (pun
intended!), and do it by hand on the other eye
(Fig.12)
Now that it’s time to wind up another section

of this beginners guide, I’ll point out that in the
next (and last) two sections, this model will
suddenly get a lot more detailed. So far I’ve

“Pay particular For all of you out there
attention to areas with who have heard of,
a lot of detail, such as but are unfamiliar with,
the eyelids; if you feel ZBrush, then this new
that a fold, crease or seven-part tutorial series
wrinkle needs to be by Wayne Robson is
added then go ahead perfect for you!
and do it, using the This total Beginner’s
same techniques that Guide to ZBrush is an
we’ve used up to this excellent starting point
point in the series. ” to get you stuck into the

This month Wayne brings

us Part Six – enjoy!!
Created In:
ZBrush
Introduction
In the previous articles in this series we have
gone from a very simple base mesh generated Tidying Up
from ZSpheres, to the stage where we now Before we start the skin detailing in earnest, I’d
need to start adding some fine detail. Although like you to go over all of your medium resolution
this takes the most time by far, for the most forms and make sure that they are tightened.
part it is very repetitive. I’m not a big believer in Be sure to sharpen them up and make sure
simply dragging out alpha with detail already in it that they look correct to your eye before
all over the model, as this does not give you the continuing with this tutorial. It’s a lot easier to
required amount of control. It can also end up do this now than to come back later (although
giving us a very “samey” look. So to help further not impossible). So please make sure that you
your ZBrush skill set, we are going to add the are happy with the direction that your model is
skin detailing by hand in this article. This is by taking, and that you feel you have gone as far
far the most rewarding way to do it, and gives as you can in the time that you have allowed so
the added benefit of letting us add the detail that far. Pay particular attention to areas with a lot
we want (rather than the detailing that we may of detail, such as the eyelids; if you feel that a
be “stuck with” from a set of alphas) (Fig.01). fold, crease or wrinkle needs to be added then
go ahead and do it, using the same techniques

that we’ve used up to this point in the series.
(Fig.02)
Using the Displace brush, with the freehand

stroke type selected, add in some finer wrinkles
between the eyebrow in the forehead area and
under the eye bags, as shown. This is your final
chance to get things as you want them before
moving onto the final stages of detailing. (In
the last article in the series we’ll then pose our
model and set it up for rendering!)
Detail Pass 1
Select your Inflate brush with ZAdd set to
a ZIntensity of 10, alpha 58 active and the
freehand stroke type. We are going to use this
www.3dcreativemag.com page 94 Issue 035 July 2008

brush to add our first pass at the skin detail. I
find it best to add high frequency skin detailing
in a number of passes, as this allows me to
create highly complex skin effects easily by
mixing simple default ZBrush alphas together
(it also shows that custom alphas aren’t a
requirement to add this sort of detailing as it can
be done using ZBrush “out of the box”) (Fig.03).
Our technique for this first pass at the skin detail

will be to drag across our model to create a sort
of “cross-hatching” effect. My approach is to
do a stroke from one angle and then, starting
from a similar place, drag out another stroke
with maybe a 5-15 degree difference. A light
hand is needed to do this; it gives a wonderfully
good effect very easily and provides us with a
fantastic base detail to work with (Fig.04).
So start with the mouth and cheek area and

drag some lines out as shown - although don’t
do the cross-hatching just yet. It is important to
make these lines go with the flow of the skin,
and remember that wrinkles most often go
against the grain of the muscle flow. A good
example of this are the horizontal lines on your
forehead; while the muscles flow up towards the
scalp, the wrinkles on your brow go horizontally.
Try to work out where the skin would be pulling
and stretching and in which direction it would be
travelling. This allows us to make sure that our
skin detail always goes with the flow of the skin
in a believable way. Do not simply drag some
random lines out and hope for the best, as 99% of the time this isn’t going
to look right. To detail skin of any type right, it’s worth putting the effort in
to make it believable.
Now add your cross hatching at a slight angle (between 5 and 15 degrees
or so seems to look best for me). Once you’ve done this, the skin in that
area shouldn’t look as shiny and boring as it did a moment ago. But,
rather importantly, the detail is still flat. There’s no life to it at all because
real skin isn’t uniform in nature, nor does it have all wrinkles of the same
depth. It varies and it’s that randomness that helps to give it a sense of
realism. It’s that random nature of raised and recessed areas of varying
depths that we need to capture in any high frequency skin detailing.
So to do this, change the alpha on your Inflate brush to alpha 35 and turn

the ZIntensity of your ZAdd to 13 or so. To add
a little sense of life into the skin detail we’ve just
added, use your Inflate brush to add mass, of
varying depths, between the wrinkles that we’ve
carved in. Take you time with this and keep a
steady hand; concentrate on each stroke and
area on its own. This not only helps to stop
you from getting bored as you detail the whole
model, but also reminds you mentally of the
importance of this step. After doing this, select
your Slash1 brush and lightly carve in some
very, very fine wrinkles - again between these
inflated areas. This helps to tighten the detail up
a bit as we go. This technique is one that we’ll
continue to use over time to cover the entire
model for our first detail pass.
Use your Inflate brush now to add a sense Up until now we’ve kept the clavicle very visible detail to the neck, use your Displace brush and
of stretching skin running from the back of to act as a reference point, but now, using our draw out a few lines running towards the deltoid
the cranium towards the top of the back and Clay brush and Inflate brush, we can get the and clavicle (Fig.06).
shoulders. As you will have guessed by now, pectoral muscles to run into it a bit better. Keep
digital sculpting isn’t just modelling something smoothing and stepping down the subdivision Now work over the entire model and tighten up
and adding detail, but rather a process of levels if you need to. This will suddenly help to every line and medium resolution detail. This is
continual correction and refinement. If you feel pull the design together a whole lot more. Again, actually easier that it sounds; it’s just a matter
you can improve an area, do it! If you feel it go in and tighten the skin folds that run from of taking areas that have become washed-out-
needs to be further tightened up, then again, under the deltoid to keep all the detail in synch looking and sharpening them a little. Due to the
go and do it! That’s what digital sculpting (and with each other. We are aiming for the model length of this article I can’t cover every single
traditional sculpting) is all about – this search for to have detail of the same density all over, with line, although the free video released in the next
the elusive “perfection” (Fig.05). a few spots having tighter detail. To add more article in the series covering the whole workflow
will help you if you find you get stuck!
Using the cross-hatching technique again, start

covering the entire model, beginning with the
throat area and making sure that the detail you
are adding is in scale with the area you are
detailing. The biggest problem many newcomers
to digital sculpting have is that the fine detail
they add at this stage is all the same size. They
make the wrinkles, which should be finer in
areas such as the covers of the eyes, end up
the same size as larger areas, such as the neck.
So try to keep the scale of your detail consistent
with the size of the feature that you are working
on. This is another way to assure that you
produce believable-looking, high frequency skin
details (Fig.06).

After you have covered the entire torso with this cross-hatching effect, it’s
time to go in with your Inflate brush again. Start to inflate and add mass
between these wrinkles - being careful not make each one identical. This
is going to take you a bit of time, but the final effect is worth it and it’s also
great practice to get used to the feel of the brushes in ZBrush. We will go
back over these again to add mass to the very small wrinkles once the
model has been posed in the next article, so for the moment don’t go into
too much fine detail with your Inflate brush (Fig.07).
Detail Pass 2
This is where we add the important second layer of skin detail to really
help the model to look better. So take your Displace brush, with the Now use your Slash1 brush to tighten areas up again, especially on the
DragRect stroke type and alpha 22 selected, and start by dragging a front of the torso. I know this can get repetitive, but it’s important not to
couple of areas out on the brows. The ZIntensity of our ZAdd is set to 11 leave the tightening stage out after each set of detailing, otherwise the
for this. Now start to spread this detail back (making it smaller as you do mode will end up looking washed out and the details and forms “muddy”.
so) towards the back of the head (Fig.08). Finish off the pectorals by going back over with your Inflate brush and the
“lines” alphas from before, and drawing some very fine (almost invisible)
Turn the ZIntensity down to 4 and drag some larger areas across each details on them (Fig.09).
deltoid, as shown. Then continue to add this detail all over the back of the
torso and back of the neck (if you find you lose some definition after this, Once you’ve used these techniques all over the model and taken it to a
feel free to add it back in again). level with which you’re happy, we can call this part of the modelling done.
In the next article (and the last in this series) we’ll pose our model and
then correct the anatomy to better fit the pose before rendering it out.
Remember to keep practicing what you’ve learned and try to apply it to
your own models (Fig.10).
If you want to try another style of skin detailing for high frequency skin
details, take a look at my site (www.dashdotslash.net) and you’ll find
a two-part video on a different type of detailing that you can do. It’s
approached in the same two-layer way, but with a totally different skin
texture. See you all next time (Fig.11)!
Wayne Robson
www.dashdotslash.net
Or contact:

“everything from For all of you out there
humanesque monsters, who have heard of,
to more warped and but are unfamiliar with,

to ZBrush
strange ideas, can be The Total Beginner’s Guide
ZBrush, then this new
created using this seven-part tutorial series
method ... there’s no by Wayne Robson is
limit to what you can perfect for you!
make – the only limits This total Beginner’s
are the ones you impose Guide to ZBrush is an
on yourself!” excellent starting point

to get you stuck into the
This month Wayne brings

us Part Seven – enjoy!!
Created In:
ZBrush
Introduction
Well here it is: the final part in the ZBrush series
for beginners. It doesn’t seem too long ago that
we had part one, does it? In this series so far,
we’ve taken a very low polygon base mesh,
made with ZSpheres, and turned it into a digital
sculpt that is within the reach of most people
starting out (although I have made the model a
little bit of a challenge, too, so that it helps push
you to your limits as a new ZBrush user!).
In this last article we will be taking the sculpt
that we completed in the last article (Fig.01) and of it. The knowledge within the seven articles
Posing the Model
posing it. After we’ve done that, we will need in this series contains everything that you need
We are going to pose the model using the
to fix the anatomy a little to help it flow with the to know in order to create your first completed
“Transpose Master” plug-in, made available
pose. Once that’s done I’ll then give you a quick digital sculpture. I hope that you’ve enjoyed
for free by Pixologic. If you haven’t got it
outline on the theory behind the preview panel, following this tutorial series as much as I have
already, just head over to Pixologic’s website
so that you can export out some nice renders writing them for you.
and download it (it comes with full installation
instructions). Transpose Master, by default,
steps each subtool in your model down to its
lowest subdivision level to enable you to pose
the entire model, including its subtools at the
same time (Fig.02).
With our model this would give us a problem; as

it stands at the moment, the lowest subdivision
level of the bust itself is too low to pose. If you
take a look at the image provided, you can see
that, although subdivision level two is better,
it still lacks some geometry around the neck
areas to enable it to deform correctly. So step
up to subdivision level three and then delete
the lower subdivision levels. We do this so
that we aren’t going to have any issues when
Transpose Master steps each subtool in our
model to its lowest level (we can always get
these subdivision levels back again by hitting
the Reconstruct Subdiv. button in the geometry
section of the Tool palette) (Fig.03 and Fig.04).
As a habit, I always step each subtool down to
www.3dcreativemag.com page 93 Issue 036 August 2008

its lowest subdivision level by hand anyway, geometry), left-click and drag it by the edge of intensity either for that matter), or we can use
mainly because I’m a big believer in “helping” one of the circles. If you do this with either of topological masking to help us move faster.
a computer out by not making it work too hard. the end circles, then that end will be moved as
Go to the ZPlugin palette and open up the you drag; however, if you left-click and drag the Topological Masking
Transpose Master section, and then hit the outside of the centre circle then the entire action Simply put, a topological mask is a type of
“TPoseMesh” button. line can be moved (Fig.05). mask that we can create in ZBrush that will
follow the topology and edge flow of our model
All of the subtools have now been temporarily Action lines are used with masks that mask off as we create it. To create a topological mask,
grouped together in one mesh for us to pose, areas we don’t want to be affected by whatever simply hold down the Ctrl key while in one of
and this does have a particular quirk that I’ll transform we do on our mesh. These can either the transform modes (move, scale or rotate),
outline in a moment. Transpose Master makes be masks painted by hand (or from a texture and drag along the geometry (Fig.06). You will
use of the transform functions (move, scale
and rotate); by using topological masking we
can mask off, along the polygon flow of the
model, different sections and then pose them.
You will notice that Transpose Master also puts
your model in orthographic mode, instead of
perspective. For some models this can be a
good thing (for example, when you need to line
up a full body pose), but for our model it’s no big
deal, so we can turn perspective back on again
by hitting the “P” key.
Action Lines
As actions lines are the one thing we must
know how to use in order to pose our model, it
is worth covering them briefly in this tutorial. An
action line is a line with three circles on it and
two of these circles act as a sort of pivot point.
To move an action line itself (as opposed to the

see (and this is especially obvious if you turn
your PolyFrame on by pressing Shift + F) that it
follows along the topology of your model (hence
its name “topological masking”).
Posing the Model

With all that theory out of the way, we can finally
start to pose the model. We will start off by
posing the head in a two-stage process. In my
experience, rather than simply “going for it” all
at once, breaking down a pose into two or more
parts makes it much easier to get something
dynamic. Drag your action line from the base of
the neck to up above the head, as shown. Now
drag a topological mask by holding down the
Ctrl key and dragging it until it’s at the base of
the neck (Fig.07).
We aren’t ready to roll just yet, as right now

we have two action lines and we’re only going
to need one of them. So go to your Transform
palette and turn off the X symmetry (or hit the
X key to toggle it off). The rest of our work will
all be asymmetrical, so we won’t need it again.
Now that we’ve got only one action line, we
need to line it up with where the vertebrate eyeballs are still masked and so are not affected drag in the centre circle (not the edge, but inside
would be in our model; this will create a realistic by the action lines. Why is this? Well, as they the circle this time). This will allow us to make
pivot point. Hold down Shift and snap your are separate geometry (and by this I mean no the head look to one side. This will also throw
model to a back view. Press Shift + F to turn on vertexes from them are attached to the other the alignment of the action line out, so drag
the PolyFrame and drag the centre circle by its subtools), the topological mask has masked each end into place again, ready for the next
edge, moving it into the centre line of the model them off. To unmask them, simply hold down part (Fig.09).
(if you have trouble, the PolyFrame helps a lot Ctrl + Alt and drag over where the eyes are, as
with lining this up) (Fig.08). shown. While the head looks OK in its current pose, to
my eye it doesn’t really say anything or convey
If we were to rotate our head right now, we’d We are now finally ready to pose the model. any emotion or feeling from within our model.
hit that “quirk” that I mentioned earlier. The Making sure that you are in rotate, left-click and So hold down the shift key and drag your model

to get it into a front view, and then just rotate the
head to one side a little, as shown. This gives
a feeling of puzzlement/thought to the pose, as
anyone who has ever owned a dog can probably
confirm (Fig.10).
Press Ctrl and left-click outside the model in

order to invert the mask so that we can start to
pose the torso of our model. Rotate it to one sculpture in a front facing pose, some parts
side from a front view a little, before aligning of the anatomy are now “off” after the posing
the action line along the spine and left-clicking (Fig.13 and Fig.14). A good example of this is
and dragging in the centre circle to finish off our the trapezium; at one side it is slightly bulged
pose. Go back to your plug-in palette and hit the out when it would actionably be extended. So go
“TPose > SubT” button, and ZBrush will do all to these areas and put things right to match the
the work for you and will put each subtool back pose itself. Work out if each muscle should be
into its own place – posed and ready! Step each extended or contracted, and correct accordingly
model up to its highest subdivision level and (Fig.15, Fig.16 and Fig.17).
take a look at the pose (Fig.11 and Fig.12).
Setting up a Nice
Correcting the Pose Preview Render
You will notice that, as we modelled our digital The model is finished now, but you can refine
it further if you wish to tighten up any areas
that you feel need it. Now there’s not a lot of
point making a nice digital sculpture if no one
can ever see it but you, so let’s set up a quick
preview render and explain how the settings for
them in the render palette work (Fig.18).
While this is covered in detail in the video that

is now available free to accompany this series
(more of that later!), I’ll cover the basics for you
now. Open the Preview Shadows section of
your render palette, as this is where we will set

the look of the preview render (all Matcaps have
lighting basked in, and as such, although you
can use “best render” most times, it’s best to set
up a good preview as this makes best use of
them. However, beware of mixing Matcaps as
the lighting baked into each matcap can be very
different!) (Fig.19).
Length: A longer shadow is softer; a shorter one

is harsher and doesn’t have the same length. So
for outdoor-type lighting, set the length high; for
indoor lighting set it low.
Slope: This controls the angle at which the light

is perceived to be coming from. So a setting of
“0” is directly above and arches lower the higher
the number, as shown in the images.
Depth: How far away is it? Lower means closer;
higher means further away (and hence more in
shadow/dark).
Anti-Aliasing
To get a good quality render, exit the edit
mode and clear the canvas by hitting Ctrl + N,
then double the size in your document panel
(assuming you want a render at the same size
that you’ve been working at) (Fig.20). If you
want one that’s bigger, adjust this accordingly. Once you are happy with your render, export it
Draw your model back on the canvas and by going to the document palette and hitting the
position it (after making sure you’ve pressed “Export” button.
the edit button!). Now for the important bit: hit
the AAHalf button and this will reduce the size The Video
of your render by 50%, and the anti-aliasing As I’ve mentioned a few times in this series of
will make the whole thing a lot smoother and articles, while working on this model I recorded
of a higher quality. You may notice that it also the process directly after the creation of the
softens the details; this is one of the reasons ZSphere rig to the text that you see above. It
why I sculpted a bit deeper and harsher than seemed a great shame for this to stay on my
you may have expected at the time. It’s a simple computer, eating up space and gathering dust,
way of compensating for the anti-aliasing effect! so the guys at 3DCreative have kindly agreed

to host the entire video for free. So if you’ve
had problems with any part of the workflow in
these articles, then there are no more excuses
(joke!). It’s one of the longest free videos there
have been in quite a while, so make sure that
you download it and I’d like to thank everyone
at 3DCreative for making it available for those
starting out in ZBrush!
Inspiration
So is this technique any good for other models,
or is it simply a “one trick pony”? Well, to answer
any niggling doubts you may have, I’ll close
this series with a couple of speed models that
I’ve done using the exact same base mesh
and workflow. Neither of them took more than
two hours from beginning to end, and hopefully
they’ll show that everything from humanesque
monsters, to more warped and strange ideas,
can be created using this method (in fact,
there’s no limit to what you can make – the only
limits are the ones you impose on yourself!)
(Fig.21).
I hope you’ve enjoyed this series, and if so I’d surface sculpting to organic and environment
like to plug my book Essential ZBrush, which will sculpting, so please support an artist today
be available soon from Wordware Publishing, and buy a copy for yourself (maybe even two!).
and will be found in all good book shops (it’s Many thanks! (Fig.22).
also available on pre-order from Amazon). It
covers the creation of an entire scene using Wayne Robson
ZBrush, along with how to get your model, For more from this artist visit:
normal and displacement maps etc. into Maya www.dashdotslash.net
and 3ds Max, as well as covering ZBrush from Or contact:
the ground up. There’s everything from hard wayne@dashdotslash.net

Total Beginner To Zbrush

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“ZBrush’s brush set is For all of you out there

arguably one of its who have heard of,

most powerful but are unfamiliar with,

features, along with ZBrush then this new

its ability to handle 7 part tutorial series

truly staggering by Wayne Robon is

polygon counts” for you. The Total

In this series we will be working our way through

as possible for people totally new to Zbrush.

I will be assuming that, at the very least, you

www.3dcreativemag.com page 87 Issue 030 February 2008

basic concepts of some of the brushes etc that

Masking off areas

www.3dcreativemag.com page 88 Issue 030 February 2008

you have an area masked off (or to continue

Which stroke you chose from the Stroke menu

www.3dcreativemag.com page 89 Issue 030 February 2008

There are some brushes that it is really

Move Brush Vs Move tool

www.3dcreativemag.com page 90 Issue 030 February 2008

Draw a Zsphere onto the canvas as shown.

Now we want to draw another Zsphere on each

Save this, as later in the series we will need this

www.3dcreativemag.com page 91 Issue 030 February 2008

In the next article we will start to sculpt on our

See you all in Part 2!

such as limbs and who have heard of,

other body parts, it’s but are unfamiliar with,

always best to use long ZBrush then this new

flowing movements 7 part tutorial series

with your mouse” by Wayne Robon is

aren’t going to be needed. So we start off by moving some around the

Next we move some vertexes around the shoulder, neck and

www.3dcreativemag.com page 88 Issue 031 March 2008

At this stage I wanted to shorten the neck a

Now we need our action lines to be in place

www.3dcreativemag.com page 89 Issue 031 March 2008

Hold down the Ctrl key again and draw in a

Now remove the mask you did before and gently

Having said that, you will want to move the

www.3dcreativemag.com page 90 Issue 031 March 2008

www.3dcreativemag.com page 91 Issue 031 March 2008

then it’s vital to get who have heard of,

the forms correct but are unfamiliar with,

near the detailing 7 part tutorial series

stage.” by Wayne Robon is

Adding the Eyeballs…

www.3dcreativemag.com page 75 Issue 032 April 2008

Adding Them to the

www.3dcreativemag.com page 76 Issue 032 April 2008

It will appear as if nothing has happened yet

www.3dcreativemag.com page 77 Issue 032 April 2008

Hold down your Shift key to take away any

Blocking Out the

www.3dcreativemag.com page 78 Issue 032 April 2008

Once the masked areas for the deltoid are In Closing…

www.3dcreativemag.com page 79 Issue 032 April 2008

ball! This may seem an who have heard of

odd thing to say, but but are unfamiliar with

beginners usually treat ZBrush, then this new

the head as a large 7-part tutorial series

rounded shape with by Wayne Robson is