ZBrushCentral

Mecha-Lisk WIP

Hey guys, thought I’d post some WIP shots of a piece I’ve been working on so maybe I’ll be motivated to finish the thing. This was my first hard surface piece in any medium and I deeply regret choosing something like this as a “practice” model to learn from, but it’s turning out nice and I HAVE to finish it. When I started this a couple months ago I just created a mess and my 32bit OS couldn’t handle what I had in mind and I gave up. Now that I’ve played with a few hard surface work-flows since I started this project I’ve got a decent understanding of how to finish it.

This is just the torso, but I’ve got other parts finished in a disorganized mess of sub-tools in a web of folders that I’ll post once I organize a bit.

100% Zbrush, not a whole lot of sculping involved with this guy, mostly clipping/masking/deformations.

Attachments

Mech_Torso.jpg

Mech_Torso02.jpg

1 Like

Great Start!
Can’t wait to see the final result:+1:

Keep it going!
Cheers,
Svyat

Nice one! :wink:

Looks cool ;), how high is your poly count at the moment. Looks pretty dense.

There are still some placeholders and unfinished parts on the torso, but right now its just under 7 mil with 59 sub-tools. Nothings decimated atm but Im sure that’ll help when I’m putting it all together.

Makes me think of the thorax of some sort of insect. I can’t wait to see the rest of the pieces come together!

Great job man !!! you can show how you did this ?

Sure m0delista, when I get a chance I’ll try and post some of my workflow. My workflow did change throughout this model a as I learned more/better ways to do things, and I’ve had to redo a bunch of stuff, but I’ll be sure to post something.

Here’s the back leg. Unfortunately for me, all four legs aren’t the same, so I’ll be posting some work on the front legs sometime this weekend.

nice, those are badass

Thanks for all the kind comments guys.

Had some time this weekend to finish up the front legs and do a few quick BPR passes.

Also went ahead and slapped together what I have so far so you guys could see a bit of the overall progress. Probably half way done at this point. The next few pieces will make this guy more recognizable.
Anyone have any guesses as to what it is? Hint: thread title gives it away.

Mechalisk01.jpg

wow really good, i loved it!

Wow, very nice

I wish i could do this kind of hard surface in zbrush, no idea of how to do that.
Amazing model!

Thanks guys

Here’s a quick little update. I’ll probably add a little more detail to the claw, just hit a wall where I couldn’t think of anything else to add.

Couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d do a little work on this model. Getting close to the end.

It should be more recognizable now. For anyone who doesn’t know, it’s an Ultralisk from Blizzard’s StarcraftII, if a Terran made it. They need a melee mech right? :wink:

I practically made the head twice. First head was something I did months ago that inspired me to do the whole thing, but it wasn’t very clean and I didn’t know as much as I do now.
Here’s what I ended up with.

HeadV02.jpg
Mechalisk.jpg

Um, that’s alot of work… damn!

super HS stuff here !!:+1:small_orange_diamond:+1:

amazing hard surface sculpting - just stunning and I totally love it!
Looking forward to the end result, keep it going and have fun sculpting!
Cheers,

  • Kenny :slight_smile:

Mech Ultralist!?!? Awesome

Thanks for all the positive comments guys.

Here’s a few shots of the carapace and some simplified workflow.


Most of my workflow is nothing new. I’m sure many people are familiar with Mike Jensen’s Eat3d hard surface tutorials, and if you’re not, check those out for a more in depth look at his techniques.

However, one thing that held me back and took me a while to control was poly count. My machine is nothing special and I run a 32bit system, so keeping my polys down took a while to figure out. The technique I used most is at the bottom of the pic. I could work on my sub-tool at a poly count as high as I wanted (844k in the ex) re-dynamesh to smooth it out a bit and get it looking the way I wanted and in most cases lowering the polys down by at least half before decimating.

Another way to lower the polys that I used a couple times was to mask the back of the duplicated sub-tool and dividing/re-projecting the unmasked areas to project the detail. Basically, just duplicate the sub-tool, re-dynamesh at a low res, project it onto the high res, mask the back and other areas you don’t need detail. Then project as you divide up. I found the other way to be a bit quicker though, although this method has the potential to get an even lower res mesh.

And a BPR render, not a whole lot more to add to the model, I was gonna add a couple arm cannons just below the claws, since the SC2 ultras have 2 sets of claws, but the model’s getting a bit dense and I’m getting tired of working on it. I might try and pose it and do a better render (although pressing the BPR button is about the extent of my rendering experience)