■ ZSketch 355Figure 10.23 The leg shapes worked in three-quarter view
- Continue to work the figure’s gesture from all views. In Figure 10.24 you can see I have
adjusted the slope of the shoulders and the inclination of the head. While I work, I try
to draw the strokes in the direction of the muscle flow and the rhythms I want to repre-
sent in the figure (Figure 10.24). It may require that I move some strokes around a bit.
You can always move strokes by pressing the W key to enter Move mode. Reenter Draw
mode by pressing the Q key. Remember you can preview your mesh while you work by
pressing the A key (Figure 10.25). - When your gesture sculpture is complete, you’ll want to save the ZSketch file as a
ZTool in case you want to revisit it later. Choose Tool → Save As to save the ZSketch.
Now, to create a new mesh, click Tool → Unified Skin → Make Unified Skin. This will
create a new unified skin mesh in the Tool menu. Select and sculpt on this tool as you
would any other polygon model. - As you work, it is possible to move the underlying ZSphere chain armature to alter the
pose or proportions of the figure. To do this, click Tool → ZSketch → Edit Sketch to
disable Edit mode then click the Bind button (Figure 10.26). The ZSketch will become
transparent. - Switch to Move (press W) and Rotate (press R). Click and pose the ZSphere skeleton
as you saw in Chapter 6. The ZSketch strokes will follow (Figure 10.27). You can
adjust the range of the bind by adjusting the SoftBind slider under Tool → ZSketch
(Figure 10.28). Click Edit Sketch again to exit Bind mode and return to ZSketch mode.
That completes this exercise on using ZSketch for gesture sculpture. You can work loose
like this or you can choose to be more specific and careful with your sculpting approach. I find
ZSketch works best for me as a sketch tool where I lay in strokes in the direction of the action