ZBrush for Detailing
So far we have been sculpting characters with a focus
on primary and secondary forms—that is, the skeletal anatomy, the muscular
anatomy, and the major forms of fat and flesh. The first three projects lack
any kind of fine tertiary details. This was intentional because I wanted to
illustrate that form is the most important consideration before you start
to detail your character. Good form is what makes the sculpture believable,
not pores and wrinkles. High-frequency details on top of bad form will do
little to help the overall effect of the sculpture.
In this chapter we’ll take our sculptures to the next level by adding fine
tertiary details. We’ll discuss alphas and strokes, and also look at ways of
creating your own alphas from existing photography or sculpting them
from scratch in ZBrush. Finally, we’ll explore the dynamics of wrinkle
patterns and how to create natural patterns on the skin.
Form and Details
Form can be broken down into three categories. The primary form represents the largest
basic shapes of the character. Secondary forms are muscle forms and folds of flesh. Tertiary
details are things like pores, fine wrinkles, and scale details. For a sculpture to work, the pri-
mary and secondary forms are the most important. As we discussed in Chapter 1, “Sculpting,
from Traditional to Digital,” a sculpture with form that is resolved will work even without
fine details. The tertiary forms are just icing on the cake and cannot make a bad sculpture
good. Figure 4.1 illustrates these three levels on a single character.