Tutorial: Quick character sheets in Zbrush

Think I saw Cesar Decal Jr utilise this in his introductions to Zbrush found on his youtube pages. I think it's great to study how traditional artists use digital software as they always seem to have some really innovative techniques which may be overlooked/ completely unused by digital veterans.

This technique will automatically export shots of your model from multiple views in to Photoshop. It has other handy uses such as getting to a certain angle quickly (if you have images for reference in the background).

So here's where to find it. Under Documents (in the top panel) go down to ZApplink Properties. From there you'll see the settings below. All you need to do is set the angle you want up in Zbrush then shift-click on the button you wish to use for that view.

By default when you select a front, right or top view it will automatically go and fill out the opposite for you.



I tend to just usually have front view, 45 degree and either a full side profile or one slightly off. Then to avoid having all selected I click the Clear To button to get rid of those views I'm not going to use.

When you click Make Character Sheet after this it will automatically run through those camera angles for you then open up Photoshop for you. It usually looks a little like the image below (having the background and the views separate). From there you can just save or edit them as you please for a very quick character sheet!



The views can be changed at any time just by setting a new view then shift-clicking on the button you wish to have as that camera angle. Left clicking will take you straight to the angle selected so if you're always working in a few areas or get your character at an uncontrollable angle it may be handy to go back to!




Above is a rough 1 hour sketch of an Alien Elf character. I've recently been looking a lot and getting inspired by Aris Kolokontes' work so the above and below designs were heavily based on his existing work.

Below is a few hours with a different model, this one an evil alien/sci fi creature. I tried to design it as a mask/possible via prosthetics so the forms are a little more human.




This entry was posted on Sunday 17 November 2013 and is filed under ,,,,,,,. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response.

Leave a Reply