ZBrushCentral

Darksouls 3 - High Lord of Wolnir - Skull Chalice - Fan Art

Happy to share my latest piece of ZBrush/Keyshot art. This is a fan art piece for the video game “Darksouls 3” where you touch a skull goblet and encounter the “High Lord of Wolnir” bosss.

My goal was to create a real-life version of the skull goblet. I tried my best to keep true to the original design of the game-play model as well as the original concept, such as the placement and amount of stones set into the metal crown and base as well as the overall flow of the swirly design patterns. I did take a lot of artistic liberties with some of the overall proportions of the model, the swirl details, coloration of the gems, and also wanted to add some teeth to the skull which I thought looked really cool.

The base model was created in 3D Studio Max. All of the sculpting was done in ZBrush. Texturing was done using ZBrush, Knald and Photoshop. Materials and lighting were all done in Keyshot.

First image is a beauty render from keyshot with a screen shot from “Darksouls 3” environment for the game location in which you find the skull goblet.

Skull_Bottom_Beauty_HDRI_ForWeb.jpg

A simple grey diffuse keyshot material applied to the skull to show the sculpting detail.

Skull_Bottom_Grey_HDRI_ForWeb.jpg

A creepy close up of just the skull. I released this on Halloween on my Facebook art page as I thought it was creepy.

Skull_Only_FrontView_A.jpg

A Grey shade keyshot render of the model.

Skull_Only_FrontView_B.jpg

Another beauty shot of the side of the model from keyshot with the background comped in from the video game. The game model did not have the glowing stones, but I thought it made the chalice feel more magical and eerie.

Skull_Bottom_Beauty_Blue_ForWeb.jpg

Here is a ZBrush Tutorial video I created showing how I sculpt the ornate swirls on my skull chalice crown.

//youtu.be/RByXIvjcS7U

A close up render of the skull sub-surface shader I created in Keyshot as well as a grey shade render. Also used some of Keyshot’s DOF camera settings for this to get an interesting blur effect.

Angles_Compare_B.jpg

Screen shots from ZBrush of the final model.

ZBrush_A.jpg
ZBrush_B.jpg

All angles of the model from ZBrush.

Chalice_ZBrush_Screenshots_A.jpg

Close up renders of the teeth. Originally I did not create the roots of the teeth but later needed to since I had them revealing through the rotting portions of the skull.

Teeth_Compilation_v01.jpg
Teeth_Compilation_v02.jpg

Two reference images I gathered when creating my skull. Before I start any modeled I gather lots and lots of reference material and images.

Reference_A.jpg

This reference image also includes a version of the final concept that “FromSoftware” created. The side view of the skull I actually used as a displacement and later texture map for sculpting my model.

Reference_B.jpg

3D Print Progress - This is the first model I have ever created that I decided to 3D Print. Here you can see the final result of the 3D Print with a can of soup as reference for scale. The model is roughly 8 inches tall. Unfortunately I will not be able to sell these commercially since this is based on a design from a copyright video game. For me, it is a fun exercise, and I enjoy having this on my desk!

3DPrint_ZBrush.jpg

Comparison Keyshot renders of the front of the skull. Leftmost image is with some custom lighting, the middle image is with one HDRI light in Keyshot, and the right most grey shade render is a diffuse shader with one HDRI light.

Angles_Compare_D.jpg

Attachments

Skull_Bottom_Beauty_HDRI_ForWeb.jpg

Skull_Bottom_Grey_HDRI_ForWeb.jpg

Skull_Only_FrontView_A.jpg

Skull_Only_FrontView_B.jpg

Skull_Bottom_Beauty_Blue_ForWeb.jpg

Angles_Compare_B.jpg

ZBrush_A.jpg

ZBrush_B.jpg

Chalice_ZBrush_Screenshots_A.jpg

Teeth_Compilation_v01.jpg

Teeth_Compilation_v02.jpg

Reference_A.jpg

Reference_B.jpg

3DPrint_ZBrush.jpg

Angles_Compare_D.jpg

4 Likes

A comparison render of the “FromSoftware” concept and my final model. I wanted to try to keep the main design flows of the curves and swirls on the crown and base but had to make a lot of original choices for how to make it all look highly detailed and fully rendered.

Concept_Compare_B.jpg

A 3/4 Angle view of the skull chalice rendered out of Keyshot. Left image is with my custom material applied with custom lighting and the right side is a simple grey diffuse material applied.

Angles_Compare_A.jpg

A 3/4 angle render of the game model which I snapped a picture of with my Iphone while playing “Darksouls 3”. The image on the right is my final textured model.

Concept_Compare_A.jpg

Side view renders of the cup from Keyshot.
Angles_Compare_E.jpg

Side view comparison of the original concept and my final textured model.

Concept_Compare_C.jpg

Keyshot renders of the back of the model.

Angles_Compare_Ca.jpg

Top down render of the Skull Goblet. Later when I have some time I might fill the cup with a blood-like liquid with bubbles…I think that would look pretty cool.

Angles_Compare_F.jpg

Keyshot rendrs of the textured base as well as a grey shaded comparison. Notice the “Pink” gem on the left. This was a work in progress version of the model where I wasn’t using the glowing version of the gems yet.

Base_Textured.jpg

The images below show the comparisons between the game concept or game model and my zbrush sculpting detail. I love the loose design of the concept which allows for a lot of artistic interpretation. I had a lot of fun making all these little swirling designs!

WIP_A.jpgWIP_B.jpgWIP_C.jpgWIP_D.jpgWIP_E.jpg

Attachments

Concept_Compare_B.jpg

Angles_Compare_A.jpg

Concept_Compare_A.jpg

Angles_Compare_E.jpg

Concept_Compare_C.jpg

Angles_Compare_Ca.jpg

Angles_Compare_F.jpg

Base_Textured.jpg

1 Like

And finally some examples of the Keyshot 7.0 lighting and material setup. In early 2018 I plan to create some tutorials showcasing how I made some of these materials, but first need some rest around the holidays :slight_smile: Stay tuned!

First image is showing my lighting setup in Keyshot. In the upper left corner you can barely see a bit of red which was a large “plane” that I added a red light material to in order to get the creepy red side lighting. The small white sphere in front is a sphere model which I added a white light material to in order to get some of the frontal/bottom lighting to get the under-lit glow on my model. I also used one HDRI light which I turned down to %30 strength in order to get some nice global lighting and reflections for my metal shader.

Keyshot_A.jpg

This shows the custom metal shader I created in Keyshot for the metal crown. You can see that I layered a “dirt” material and a “rust” material on top of the metal for extra realism such as were dirt and rust build up around nooks and crannies. I was able to extract some nice cavity maps from ZBrush in order to mix between my metal and dirt/rust materials.

Keyshot_B.jpg

Skull Material - Here you can see the custom bone material that I created for the skull. Much like the metal crown I layered several materials on top of my bone shader for added realism. I had two dirt materials. One dirt material was for filling the cracks and divets in the skull, and the other dirt material was an overall dirt that laid over random parts of the skull and build up more thickly close to where the metal crown meets the bone as you can seen in the image. I also had a slightly brighter version of the bone material which I mixed onto the base bone material using a edge mask I created from ZBrush to highlight some of the edges of the bone for subtle highlights.

Keyshot_C.jpg

Glowing Gem Material - Finally you can see the gem material I created. This was a translucent material which I layered a dirt material on-top of. I also added a small light in the center of the mesh which helps illuminate and make the surface glow. You cannot see it in this render, but it is just a cloned version of the gem model that is scaled down and has a light material applied to it.

Keyshot_D.jpg

Attachments

Keyshot_A.jpg

Keyshot_B.jpg

Keyshot_C.jpg

Keyshot_D.jpg

Just an amazing piece. Thank you for sharing so much. The print came out amazing.

Thanks a lot! This was a fun piece to work on, especially learning how to build all the custom shaders in Keyshot. Also, I learned a lot with the 3D Printing process :slight_smile:

Have you gone to the door to greet your guests whilst sipping from your skull chalice ?
Doing so would raise an eyebrow or two I would wager.

Fabulous execution of fantabulous details.:+1:
Thanks also the fab videos you’ve made and shared.

Haha…That would be funny. The sad thing is that the resin formula needed for the 3D prints is highly toxic, so I am not able to drink out of it. I could probably put some type of lining inside that would make it safe to drink from?

And thanks for the nice comments. I should have a few more videos in the future about the creation process, but gonna take a bit of down time before tackling things hard again in the New Year!

What a wonderful result! Love it!

Thanks a lot SolidSnakexxx!

Awesome!!!

Thanks Joe!

Beautiful! And thanks for sharing the material node setup. Interesting.

Where did you release the file for printing it?

I didn’t see a 3d print file. Did you release it, I don’t suppose we could get a link if you did?

I love Dark Souls and I’d love to have one of these on my desk to hold my D&D dice.