The Making Of Pirate

Felipe Bassi takes us through the creation of his 3D version of Brett Bean's Pirate.

Introduction

I chose the awesome concept made by Brett Bean as a feature in my modeling reel. The first time I saw the image I knew that I was going to model it and so when I started to choose concepts for my reel - that was instantly my choice.

In this Making Of, I will show the steps I took to create this character. I like this workflow because of the freedom that gives me to focus on the artistic part of the modeling in the early steps. At the first stage the only thing I worry about is good silhouette, posture and nice shapes - all the technical parts like topology and UVs are in a completely different stage of the process.

Step 1: Sketch in ZBrush

I started with ZSphere inside ZBrush. The main objective at this stage is to get the right proportions and posture. Even in a neutral pose, with the right posture you can determine what kind of personality the character has.

The basic model sculpted with a ZSphere

Step 2: Sculpting the main shapes

After I got a good silhouette I started to separate the pieces and sculpt the main shapes. At this stage I didn't need fine details, but things like folds in the clothes are important since it was going to be on the topology later on. Here's my final sketch read ready for re-topology.

Get the major details and forms in your model

Step 3: Retopology

It was then time for the technical stuff that I was talking about in the introduction. I always start with the body, since all the clothes go on top of the body, so for me it makes more sense to model in this order. At this stage I paid extra attention to the topology as this character was designed for animation. I retopologize all the pieces.

Retopologizing all the pieces in preparation for animation later

Step 4: Finalize Retopology in 3ds Max

It was then time for the technical stuff that I was talking about in the introduction. I always start with the body, since all the clothes go on top of the body, so for me it makes more sense to model in this order. At this stage I paid extra attention to the topology as this character was designed for animation. I retopologize all the pieces.

The retopologized details on the model

Here's the final model with the topology done

Step 5: UVs

This was the tedious part of the work. I prefer to use a UV Layout as it's easy and fast, and so perfect for this kind of work. There's no trick to make UVs, just make sure that is no overlapping and stretching on them and you will be fine. I made five UV shells.

Various UV layouts on the model

Step 6: Textures

The texturing part is one of my favorite parts of the whole process. This is when I start to see the character coming to life. For the clothes I used just Photoshop. I collected big size images and started to tweak them and add other images on top for texture, stains and small details. From that map I made a Bump, Specular and Glossiness map.

Various maps gained from the model

Using ZBrush to create the skin

Step 7: Posing

For the pose I used the ZBrush Transpose tool, it's faster and easier than making a rig inside 3ds Max.

Posing the character

Step 8: Hair

I decided to make the hair inside ZBrush using Fibermesh. As I'd never used it before, I thought it would be a nice opportunity to test it, and think came out quite nicely. I made five different setups, one for the eyebrows, mustache, and hair, and two for the beard.

The setups for the model's face

Step 9: Render

This is the point when you see if everything wells well, and your character really comes to life.
I used V-Ray for the render - it's the only render engine I've ever used so I'm quite comfortable with it. I made a basic 3-point light rig for the final shot.

The 3-point lighting setup

Step 10: Shaders

The shaders are quite simple too, as you can see. For the hair I used VRayHairMtl and to my surprise it looked good.

The VRayHairMtl shader looked great on the model

Step 11: Render set up

The render setup was quite basic, and I did just a little color correction in Photoshop for the final image.

Final render of the model

Oh, something I forgot to say in the beginning - always gather references, lots of references. For modeling, texturing, and lighting, it's always useful in every step of the process.

Step 12: Conclusion

This character was the first in my modeling reel and I'm pretty happy with the final piece. Every time I make a new character I learn something new, and I learned a lot of new things with this project. I hope you guys like it and check out the final result on my modeling reel: https://vimeo.com/77063393.

The final image