A ZBrush workflow

3D generalist Gregory Stoffel shares his ZBrush workflow of the awesome Rhino a tribute to Creature Box

First of all, I would like to give credit to the awesome artists at Creature Box where the concept of this character comes from. They really do amazing work!

Rhino was a personal project to practice my sculpting skills and to create a character entirely in ZBrush. My goal was to create a character that looks like a figurine or toy, I have chosen to put him on a stand and render it in KeyShot. You can watch a time-lapse video of the sculpting and the PolyPainting part of this character here.

Creating the body

In ZBrush I started with a simple sphere and enabled DynaMesh to create the body and head. I mostly used three brushes: the Move, Clay Buildup and DamStandard brushes to create the main shapes and overall proportion of his body.

Body creation with DynaMesh

Adding arms and legs

To create the arms and legs, I inserted some cylinders with the InsertCylinder brush and move them around with the Transpose tool, then when in it is in place, I blended the cylinders with the body by re-DynaMeshing with Ctrl+Drag in the window (not on the model).

InsertCylinder Brush to create the arms and legs

Creating additional elements

To create the horn and eyes, I started with a simple sphere and enabled DynaMesh to modify its shape. For the teeth, I just duplicated the horn and modify its shape with the Move brush; then used the Transpose tool to duplicate (by holding the Ctrl key) and place each tooth. I made one side of the teeth and modified their shape; then mirrored them on the other side. I used the same technique to create the toenails, starting with a simple cube, enabling DynaMesh and modifying its shape.

Creating the horn with a sphere and DynaMesh

Duplicating the horn and modifying it to create the teeth

Create the toenails from a cube

Posing the character

Once I was happy with the basic shape and proportion of the character, it was time to pose him. The pose I wanted was quite simple just him standing on his stand. By simply masking and moving the unmasked part with the Transpose tool, I get quickly the pose I wanted.

Posing the character with masking and Transpose tool

Adding details

After posing him, I turned off DynaMesh and started adding details on the body and the other elements (teeth, horn etc.). I only had 2 levels of subdivision at this stage as it is easier to work on a lighter model.

Defining some details to a certain point

Retopology and projecting the details

To continue adding details and be able to go to a higher resolution, I first duplicated the SubTool and then made the retopology of each SubTools using ZRemesher. With the retopology done, I subdivided the new SubTool and projected the details of the old mesh on the new one using the Project All button.

Make a clean mesh with ZRemesher and projecting the details from the DynaMesh SubTool

Adding more details and smoothing

With these new clean meshes, I subdivided them even more and added more skin details, cracks in the horn and teeth. To create the darker plate on the body and the face, I have masked the shapes of these plates, extract them as new SubTools and then modified them by using the Move brush and hPolish brush. The base is a mesh I had done earlier so I just had to import it in the scene and place it under the character.

Subdividing the new clean meshes and adding more details

PolyPainting in ZBrush

To start PolyPainting, I first change the MatCap to the SkinShade4.
Then using the color menu and the FillObject button to assign the base color to each SubTool. I then use different colors, strokes and alphas to add variations in the texture.

PolyPainting the SubTools and add variations with different strokes and alphas

Rendering and quick retouching

I imported all the SubTools in KeyShot. The rendering was a simple studio lighting with the standard HDRi. Then a quick bit of retouching in Photoshop to finish the image.

Simple object render in Keyshot in a studio environment

Final retouching in Photoshop

The final image

Related links

Check out more of Gregory's work on his website
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