Cadi Zbrush Character

Over the last few days I have been modelling my character Cadi in Zbrush. If I was to make my movie that I am currently working on as part of my Masters, "The Cheese Moon of Hillsville", I would use 3D printing techniques for the faces. I would make all the characters faces, along with some of the props and sets in Zbrush and then print them out, meaning I could create a level of detail and emotion that is often missed using traditional stop motion modelling techniques. If any further texture or moving parts needed to be added later, such as clothes, armatures and texture in the general land scape they could then be added afterward using traditional stop motion techniques.

I've never done a human character in Zbrush before so this has been a challenge for me. I started off with a sphere and spent some time blocking out the initial shape of the face and hair. I then went on to add the detail and refine the features using symmetry at first, but as I knew from my designs I didn't want the face to be even and I wanted pieces of hair in different places I freely sculpted after a while. This was also the first time I have created eyes using a different sub tool. I tried to be more methodical with my sculpting this time so that I could easily make changes as everything was being kept separate.

I spent a lot of time on the hair as I have never modelled it before and I didn't want to use the built in hair brush in Zbrush. The hair needed to have a traditional feel to it, as did the rest of the face, because I wanted to give it as much of a traditionally sculpted feel as possible. This was another reason I chose to use Zbrush. It is one of the most comprehensive software packages that allow you to create 3D models in a more organic way compared to programs such as Maya. Being a traditional artist originally with a background in fine art I found the transition from physical to digital sculpting a lot easier using ZBrush. I have however encountered quite a few problems getting used to the program, but now I know the basic functions of the software fairly well, through tutorials, teachings/advice and practice I can use the software much more comprehensively. For this project I not only want to sculpt the face but I also want to create several different facial expressions for Cadi inside Zbrush. This means I will have to retopologize my model and create different levels in Zbrush, all of which I have never done before. Therefore I am trying to finish my model as quickly as possible to give me ample time to experiment with this and allow time for things to go wrong (as they always do). Below is my model as it is so far, but it is still a work in progress that I hope to finish by the end of this week or beginning of the next. If I was to make the model deepening on the printer I was using I probably wouldn't print the hair, but I found it important to include it in the model, otherwise it would not look like my character, and it would be hard to tell if the character would work once printed out. It also gave me chance to practice my hair sculpting techniques, which I was grateful for.