101(^05)
BREAK UP THE MODEL
Time to pose the character! Scope into your sculpt and select the
Cutout tool. Select a basic shape and set a Soft Blend amount. Then cut the hand
off the model, the lower arm, upper arm, torso and so on. When you cut using
Soft Blend, there’ll be a gap between your elements. You can then scope into the
parts and move their cut shape so it overlaps with the neighbouring elements.
You can also add and subtract shapes to make your elements blend nicely.
(^06)
ADDING NEW SCULPT
I prefer to keep as much of my early sketching as possible within the
same sculpt, but for some elements it makes better sense to make a new sculpt.
For the shoulder pads, I make a new sculpt as it would be difficult to keep the
shapes clean if I need to change part of the arm underneath it. Now is also a
good time to go over your model with the Detail Sculpt tool that you find in the
Tools tab. Use this as much as possible on your shapes to optimise them.
07
STYLING THE CHARACTER
I’m quite happy with the character at this point, and as you can see I’ve
added an environment, and a few other characters and lights, so now it’s in a
proper setting. To give the different parts of the model the right material
properties, open the Sculpture Properties. In here you can change how metallic
an object looks, how reflective it is or how wax-like it appears. You’ll want to add
colour too. The grey parts of the main character are elements that I hand-
painted using the Spray Paint tool. The rest of the colour and styling is done
exclusively through the Sculpture Properties.
For the camera, I turn up the
aperture setting and make sure the
distance matches that of the main
character. This gives a nice blur to
the background and foreground and
helps frame the character.
I draw some flecks with the
Brush tool and set them to
High Reflection to give some
surface variation to an
otherwise monotone floor.
UsingPaintmodealongwith
theLinetool,I addlinesofflecks
runningdownthewindows
asrain.In Painting≥Effects
Properties,I makethemmove
usingtheFlowfunction.
A spotlight points towards the
king character and casts his
shadow on the wall. It helps tell
the story and guides the eyes of
the viewer towards him.
I use Brush Strokes – set to Full Wax
in the Brush Stroke Properties and
scattered with the Painting≥Duplicates
function – to simulate smoke. It looks
more natural than the fog gadget.
08
PRESENTING YOUR CHARACTER
When you feel like your character work is done, it’s time to present it in
the best way possible. The pose is obviously important. Here are a few different
areas that I thought about while composing the final scene.