ZBrush Character Creation - Advanced Digital Sculpting 2nd Edition

■ Painting a Creature Skin 175

The spray brush you just created will put

down color in a broken, random pattern similar

to those created by an airbrush. See Figure 5.20

for a sample of the brush stroke.

3. You can save this brush as a preset by clicking
   on the main Brush menu and selecting Save As.
   Save the brush in your BrushPresets folder at
   \Program​Files\Pixologic\ZBrush4\
   ZStartup\BrushPresets
   With the brush saved here, it will always
   load with ZBrush, thus giving you easy access
   to this custom brush variant. Another option
   is to save the brush in ZBrushes. This will
   make the brush accessible via the Lightbox.

Blocking in Temperature Zones of the Face

Using the information we now have about color temperature, we’ll begin to block in those
areas on the ZTool. Use the custom spray brush and be sure to keep your paint job overstated
and vibrant at this stage. This will be the lowest layer of many layers of color, so the brighter
it is now, the better it will look when under several more layers of color. This entire painting
process is shown in a video on the book’s DVD.

1. Begin by establishing an overall base color for the head. Click Tool → Polypaint and turn
   on Colorize. Under the UV Map menu click the Disable UV button to delete the UVs
   from the current model. This will free up system resources since ZBrush will not have to
   track UVs while you polypaint. UVs can always be reimported later. This enables poly-
   painting. We want to select a base color on which to paint. White is a poor base color as
   it makes all other colors look too bright. It is easier to paint on a hue that represents the
   final look we are striving for. Open the main Color menu and click the SysPalette button
   (Figure 5.21). From the color picker select a light peach hue, something near RGB 251
   228 198. This is a good base for a lighter skin tone.


2. With the color value selected, make sure RGB is on for your current brush. Choose
   Color → Fill Object. This will fill the object with the base tone selected.


3. The next stage is to spray in the warm regions of the face. Give the head an overall light
   pass of red, concentrating it in the cheeks, nose, and neck (Figure 5.22). Also touch the
   ears with red. Ears have a tendency to be warm (Figure 5.23). When painting, adjust
   the RGB intensity slider. For most of the painting, I keep the slider around 25. You
   want to keep the colors somewhat transparent so that they will mix better as they are
   applied over one another.


4. After this pass of warm hues, select blue RGB 1 128 255, and use the same spatter
   brush block in the cool regions of the face (Figure 5.24). The area around the mouth,
   chin, and jawline has a tendency to be cooler. Spray blue in these areas as well as the
   eye sockets. Also use the blue in the recessed regions, such as the neck (Figure 5.25)
   and recesses of the ears.

Figure 5.19

Spray stroke

settings

Figure 5.20 Sample stroke from the

Spray brush

Figure 5.21

Color menu and

SysPalette