Semi Oblique Strategies
About fifteen years ago I was having infrequent character modeling sessions between other jobs, and as such, I kept forgetting all those small and valuable discoveries and learnings during the process.
In one of those instances I decided to write notes to myself, and kept that practice going on for some years. This proved to be useful, and through the years I became aware of the mistakes I kept on making, and managed to reinforce some good practices.
A few days ago I dug out my old notes. They are primarily aimed at digital sculpting and ZBrush, but not exclusively.
I decided to share them here in their explicit or abstract raw form, with the thought that someone else out there might find something useful, or might consider starting something similar.
On Sculpting
Always check measurements, don't trust your eye.
Never work without reference.
Don't focus too much on one area, move on.
Work in sessions, keep a clean eye.
Try to block everything in the beginning, even using simple boxes. Work from large to small.
Pose it.
Add asymmetry.
Use hard brushes for blocking.
Focus 90% on the volume, forget the details.
Leave the smoothing and surface details for the end.
Use masking for modeling.
Blur your reference image, or squint your eyes so you can focus on the big forms.
Define the planes.
Give scale with detail.
Use cavity masking along with the smoothing brush to retain forms.
Suggest details, think of broken lines in drawings.
Zoom out when blocking.
Use clay brushes for large areas and clay tubes for small forms.
To get a better overview of the entire model add a few quick features to the model; like hair, eye bows, clothing, etc.,
Experiment with alphas.
Add volume and cuts in bulk, then smooth them out to finish the surface.
Use pinch brush to add definition to cuts and accents, otherwise the model will look like a constant blob.
Use ortho views to check angles and straights.
Always sacrifice details for the correct volume.
Use Inflate and Pinch to make a thin border on volumes instead of leaving a large undefined concave gap.
Use fast mode when things are getting slow.
Check the model without shadows, especially in hidden areas.
Use clay tubes at higher sub-d levels against the surface direction to add a sense of flesh.
When using reference, try to match the lighting. Vary the perspective, otherwise the model will only look good from a single viewpoint.
When tweaking the surface based on the light and shadow planes, try to adjust the surface by both pushing and pulling at the same ratio.
Use masking along with move brushes for creases. Always push out from the surface underneath.
Add balance and gesture to the pose, even if it's static.
Add accents by identifying the darkest blacks and the brightest whites.
Never place props or objects perfectly symmetric, leveled and straight.
Look at the contour for the nature of the line, curved or straight, angled, concave or convex.
Follow and add hints to the line the bones form towards their connecting sockets.
Use the hard round alpha for pencil sharp detailing, or for cutting and adding volumes.
Remember the way cylindrical forms interlock.
Use a cartoon shader to check the outlines.
Think of forms and shapes that "snap" sharply a la Bernini. Avoid round cavities.
Skin folds go on the outside like a tight cloth; the inner surfaces maintain the volume.
Add cuts and breaks to joint forms or surfaces to make them feel organic, to blend into each other.
Look for the tilt and twist direction of the limbs.
When looking at reference, draw (or imagine) vector arrows pointing out of the planes defining the form. Try to match that in your model.
Proportions are all about relationships. When something looks too short you can make it narrower to increase its perceived proportional length.
There are always at least two ways to fix a problem.
Shaded or dark areas can trick your eye when measuring.
Flip the image to see it with a fresh eye.
Use negative space. It's a great way to objectively measure proportions.
Volume has priority over form, Don't dig the form too much into the volume. Go back to lower sub-d levels and fill in to restore the basic volumes.
Look at the model from straight angles and not preferred ones.
Be conscious of the overall tilt of your character or reference. This affects the direction of every plane towards the light.
Tapering of volumes can distort the perception of proportions the same way perspective does. Take that into account.
Pose things temporarily to model into the inaccessible places.
Isolate areas and work on them independently when you don't have good access, or other things obstruct your view.
When forms are becoming messy or blocky, especially when you are working at a higher subdivision, remember that it only takes a minute and a couple of strokes to smooth it out and reconstruct it, even if you have precious high frequency details. Always give priority to the major volumes/forms instead of the smaller ones (think Gio).
In the final stages zoom in really close to the model and make adjustments. This helps increase the final surface quality.
Change the medium and do a paint over on the model in photoshop to see how you can improve or modify it.
The more you rework the forms, the more you mess up the general volume. In most cases, the loose model you made in the beginning looks better.
Keep it simple.
VOLUME>Form>detail.
Reference, reference, reference.
Use morph targets to store revisions of the model. Always check and revert. Don’t get emotionally attached to the latest.
Don't be lazy with reference, 10 minutes of working from image reference equals to two days of messing blindly with the model.
Ortho doesn't exist in real life, use high lens values instead (low FOV).
You can use the flatten brush instead of clay to fill the surfaces, or to smooth at high sub-d levels.
When you make cuts into the model, use a small size brush and build it outwards from that point. If you use a large brush in the beginning, you will create a big U valley and you will end up with a blobby mesh.
Run a mild inflate pass over the model to restore the volume and remove the blobbyness.
Look for planes! Fix the valleys where the planes meet.
Zoom in close to the model more often, especially when you are using higher zsubs.
Break the habit of smoothing after every stroke.
Use strong front and side lighting. Check the model with sharp shadows. This can help to clean up blobby surfaces.
Check the angles of the big volumes and don't be afraid to modify them.
Look for the rhythm, relations, angles when working with reference to position the features correctly.
Use pinch brush to scale stuff.
Sometimes the forms become clearer only after adding high frequency details.
Think where the model has a bumpy surface, where fat or bone contacts the skin, and add bumps with the scatter stroke.
Don't forget to add accents.
Use an extremely wide perspective to straighten lines. It accentuates flaws.
If you try to add wrinkles, dips etc. at a lower or wrong subdivision level, you will get a mushy model. Try to filter big, medium and small forms and work on them at the appropriate level.
When working on likeness, try to identify the terminator lines between the light and dark areas (at the third form level), and try to reproduce them.
Don't build forms with cuts and dips, build them with planes and layered forms. Identify the big masses (box, sphere, cylinder, cone) and respect their initial volume. The highest form always has priority on the lower. Don't mess the higher form with the lower secondary forms. Zoom out and compare. The model should feel the same in size.
It takes 5 minutes to redo the high frequency details, one hour to redo the third forms, one day to redo the secondary forms and a lifetime to master the volume/initial forms.
You have to consider the size your model will be displayed at when you choose a radius of a bevel or the size of small details.
Analyze curvature profiles of the bumps, dips or cuts on reference. Do paintovers and draw cross sections.
Save your previous sessions in a different file and load them alongside the model you are currently sculpting for comparison when you go overboard with modeling.
Force yourself to work on the far side (from the camera) of the model!
Analyze the planes of your volumes. Are they facing downwards or upwards? Are they tilted from the top or facing the viewer? What is the angle between them? <> 90? <> 45? etc.
Use brushes with a very low intensity to finish the form and to create subtle surface shifts.
Sometimes it's good to use very large pointed brushes to make dips into forms.
Organic surfaces are either concave or convex, and seldom planar.
Make a thumbnail sculpt using a small size document (canvas).
Don't forget asymmetry.
Use a flat colored background.
Once in a while, go back to your lowest sub-d levels and re-define the volumes.
If something doesn't work, smooth it, define the volume with primitives, define the forms and planes, do the details and accents again and you are done.
Don't forget to save a previous version as a morph target and in older session files. Always check against as you progress.
From time to time check your measurements and proportions. It's a good idea to bring the model into a DCC package and do some FFD work or to check the proportions using reference projection.
Find the apex of the rounded form! Don't create boring tubular shapes all over the model.
Forms should interlock in a clear V (flat planes), Analyze the V angle on the reference image. Don't interlock the forms with a U shape! One elegant way to do this is with a large standard pinch brush, after which you smooth the sides of the V and pinch the point. Larger forms interlock in a V, smaller, inflated ones interlock in a n. Accents are done in an n form. The angles between the planes define the style of the work, like they do in drawing. If you want to copy a style, analyze the angles and the V interlocking and the apex of the rounded forms.
Use the H/V angles and relations principle in 3D. Look for the gesture of the curve: Convex, Concave, S.
If you can't get something right, smooth it and redo the planes.
You can't finish a model without making it look good from any light direction.
Remember the concept of mesh sharpening by creating light or dark halos.
The first question you have to ask when positioning a volume or form in space is: Does it face downwards, upwards or is neutral. Try to find big neutral volumes and use those as a reference point.
Think of the Z plane orientation of your forms in terms of the Dynamic Range. If most of your planes are rotated upwards, then the dynamic range will be mostly in a high key (with a top/down light), and you will get low contrast and non appealing forms
Create planar models with complex topology and then deform them into the final shape by using FFD, bend, skin warp, curve deformers, move projection etc.
For a crisp mudbox like surface finish turn off the shadows and add accents with the cut brush. Finish everything with pinch brush if desired.
Laying out a bone structure will enhance the believability of the model. It works really well on characters with exaggerated features.
Think of Cold and Hot lines, Cold and Hot surfaces.
If the model is not looking good from a mid/far view, it's because the medium frequency details on the surface are messing the main form. Go back and define the volumes/planes.
Extract the essence.
The first question to answer when you try to determine proportions is: wide or tall?
Zoom out from the reference or blur it to filter high frequencies (surface or smooth blur). See what details remain visible at that size and compare it with the model.
Use the Surface Noise feature as a temporary solution to get a better impression of the surface quality.
The first questions when determining the surface normal of a plane are: Is it pointing up or down? Then, is it pointing left or right?
Use a white background from time to time.
Pay the same amount of attention to the dark planes as to the light ones.
Half of the time modeling is spent on smoothing. Get very familiar with smoothing modes and use them often.
Be careful when choosing your preferred camera FOV. Make sensible and informed choices, and switch often based on context. Double check your model in another package.
Create camera bookmarks to aid the 2D to 3D proportion reference check process.
On Clothing
Suggest the form underneath.
Make sure to have contrast and balance between wrinkled and smooth areas.
Have a few (~3) prominent wrinkles to help the design and the composition, don't make everything the same intensity.
Add definition, don't make it blobby
Consider the material type when you choose the angle of termination of the wrinkles. Sharp, stroke like = thinner material, smother = thicker material.
Compression creases on clothing tend not to follow the surface. They are straight and wrap around the surface like a hexagon.
Add big outer folds to displace the silhouette, like in 3D scans; also see Kolby
Look for high res clothing macro references; look for seams, stitches, piping etc
Exaggerate the scale of stitches, borders or other details, if the texture is too small and it isn't readable. Look at the model from a distance.
Long hanging folds start sharp and develop smooth.
Leave stitches and other details to the end.
Always go up one more level of sub-d than necessary.
When doing seams, create the bulge, pinch (for topo density), then cut at the end.
Study the fold anatomy. In most cases they are sharp. It is easier to create them with a pinch brush and then blunt them if necessary.
Create a morph target of the model in the beginning in case you need to fix the ends.
You can fill the creases with the flatten brush to create the illusion of a surface beneath
Consider creating the major seams in the base model topology. Otherwise it can be messy in the end.
Sculpting seam lines: Create a morph target, create a new layer, then sculpt the seam at a higher intensity than needed. Tone down the layer intensity or add small planar strokes along the seam so you can achieve an uniform profile. Correct mistakes using the morph or the smooth brush.
Remember that when a fold is sharp on one side, it is usually smoother on the other. If it goes under on one side, it can be completely flat on the opposite side.
Reinforce seams or edges so they will hold up in zbrush when smoothing.
Remember romb and Y shapes. Make long bridges between the rombs and follow the inside round line that happens between the parts that are compressed the most.
The compression of the fold occurs on the concave side of the line.
Count, measure and analyze the scale and the proportions of the folds compared to the overall size of the object.
Try to find more uses for the directional smoothing brush. It works great for folds.
Model clothing as layered elements. Each layer should have a minimum gap underneath to cast AO. Layers = tuck-in
Consider the cloth thickness and offset from the body
Add material contrast (thick soft) and value contrast.
Elements: Accessories, Seams, Straps, Locks, Borders.
Mesh sharpen seams with an m profile. (Kolby)
Deform seams along gentle cloth waves. Don't keep everything straight
Observe the way the fold crosses the seam and ends on the other side.
Characters with a lot of clothing layers have a very sloped line around the trapeze area. Remember this, check for reference and measure the angle, otherwise they will appear hunched, or with a very short neck.
On Facial Landmarks
Triangle of the mouth. It starts from the upper side of the nose.
Y plane connecting the nose, cheekbone and chin.
Three planes of the forehead.
Eyebrows extend farther than the skull connecting bridge point.
Backplane between the jaw and the ear.
Kite shape of the chin with planes where the jaw is.
The outside of the cheekbone follows the eyebags and flows backwards in the direction of the nose-mouth lines.
The upper side of the cheekbone is like a top part of the cylinder and flows behind the eyebrow.
The widest point of the cheekbone is at the bridge between the square part and the ear connection bone.
The eyes are sphere shaped. Always reference their radius, and don't make them flat.
The upper part of the eye is like a cone that tapers from the eyebrow towards the eye.
The eye region shape changes depending on the orientation of the pupil.
The sideburns form quite a large gap from the ear.
The three indentations in the neck base.
The accent on top of the neck/Adam's apple.
The two major wrinkle lines of the neck.
The chin is driven by the base shape of the jaw bone.
The flesh puff that follows the upper and lateral part of the eye socket bones and the dip of the temples.
The bridges toward the lower lip.
The indentation of the lips, especially on the lower one.
The line at the base of the nose from the eye down is parallel to the outer edge of the nose.
The forehead usually follows the plane of the nose.
Indentations of the lips (avatar ref).
Special shape of the zygomatic bone with the straight top and a curved bottom starting from the eye. Then at its widest point it forms a concave arch that runs towards the top of the ear.
The chin has a flat sharp bottom.
The tip of the cheekbone is usually a bit behind the front of the eye.
The plane on the outside of the lower eyelid has its normal pointing on the X axis.
Measure things in 3D. human 180cm ; head 22.5cm, cheek 13cm, side skull 14.5cm, back-brow 19cm, feet 25cm, 27cm (42 EU shoe size); hand 10.5cm+8.5cm pad; ribcage, 28 cm, chest 22 cm; hips 27.5cm (love h.), shoulders 43 cm wide.
On Hard Surface
For HS concepting, start with big shapes, clone elements, layer panels.
Make a quick and dirty model in ZB and don't focus too much on surface quality. In Max (DCC), try to capture the large shapes from the reference model in low poly objects, then detail them separately. Save the cuts, indents, holes, nits for ZB.
Use masking along with the move brush or the move tool for extruding.
You can collapse the end of the loops that control the convex edge of a form. On the concave angles, leave the loops open, terminated in a 5 sided poly.
Make cuts with chamfer, swift loop, edge extrude (Max).
When making straps, clothing or other things tight onto the mesh, it's better to extract them from the main mesh.
Use the collapsed sub-d mesh to add additional details.
Create a basic low poly mesh of the entire object as a starting base. Then split and model each part separately.
If you have parts that need animation, model them fitted, animate them to the expanded position, then model the interior.
Model the borders and the insides of panels. You can use a spline as a rubber lining. (Vadim DW)
Think of the Q4 technique for nuts and bolts (floating geo).
Use the "spline to seams" method when you have to do a lot of precise cuts on a surface . Mark the seams and the borders with a 4 sided spline, then cap the holes and redo the topology of the inside parts.
Learn to use splines for complex planar shapes that can be extruded or swept.
Use curve deformers to create belts or similar flat objects.
Plan the UVs in advance when dealing curve deformed surfaces.
Make use of mid poly to increase your modeling speed.
Not everything has to be Sub-D! Learn to be efficient.
Use a black material (ID 2) for sealings, creases, seams, crevasses, holes, to force shadow and create the illusion of depth. You can also detach these elements for better control.
Use insets to create buffer zones and to keep the original topology contained inside them.
Use smoothing groups with turbosmooth to create quick complex surfaces (or crease double smooth technique).
Detach parts for future detailing.
Create reinforcing a structure inside panels.
Think of the edge definition in double chamfer or triple chamfer terms.
If you are doing retopo on hard surfaces, start by loosely defining the largest smooth planes without connecting each other, then run a sub-d on them to create a denser surface. Only weld them at the end.
It is better to work with a denser perfectly smooth surface instead of a loosely defined one. You can easily remove the unneeded topology afterwards.
If you need to add more loops to reinforce the smoothness of the surface, detach that part to a separate element, do a sub-d/collapse, then attach it again to the main model.
On The Process
The single most important thing is cultivating your “eye”.
When asking for feedback and people are bothered about certain areas, trust them. Learn how to work in blind, without being able to see the mistake yourself.
Ask what is first the thing that jumps to your eye as being wrong. Apply the same question to yourself when viewing your work after a longer period of time.
Don't show your model after the first session.
Don't be too enthusiastic or pessimistic about your work after the first session; let another day pass.
Don't finish your work with a T pose. The pose and attitude helps to sell your work.
Don't judge your model too soon when you are texturing. Have you finished adding all the passes to the texture map?
For the final tweaks, leave one day before judging your final renderings. It's almost certain that you will make modifications and it will lead you to an even better result.
Save the model at the end of the day with the name_monthday.zpr.
Harsh criticism is a great tool to use for a better result. Learn how to use it well.
There is a point where you have to stop, or you waste your time and ruin the model. But there is also a point where a drop of luck or brilliance could add 100% to your model.
If you don't succeed in creating a good render setup for your model, take a break and try again the next day again.
You have to fail a couple of times to get it right.
Render and display it large. Large feels more appealing and it helps if you spend a lot of time on small details.
Use a grayscale reference sheet and try to find high-res imagery for third forms and high frequency details.
The answer to everything is reference!
Have sessions where you work fast and others when you deliberately slow down a lot. Change tools often.
Let playtime sessions happen. Fail, experiment and draw conclusions.
Know and customize your tools. They are an extension of you.
Don't forget to flip the image horizontally and vertically often to check it.
Don't underestimate the power of paint overs, or concept sketches. Don't think that you will get nothing out of it and refuse doing it.
Think of a backstory when designing something, be it an item or a pattern, and try to make it reflect that.
Believability is achieved through patterns and coherence.
Create an aesthetic rules library.
Never stop learning.