Scar, The Lion King

Latest Disney sculpt, Scar from Disney's The Lion King. A challenge no doubt, but I had somewhat of an easier time after the shere kahn sculpt. As always, Zbrush is my MO, starting with a sphere and using dynamesh. I made some adjustments that were not captured in the timelapse, because I had taken it to the point where I was ready to upload, but I spotted a few things that were off. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise, the final image ended up turning out much better than the first one.

Long live the king.

Final image:

Timelapse:

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 References:

Hercules

My latest Disney classic, Hercules. I was able to catch this on ABC family, so I recorded it. (I wish they showed the classic more often) I paused occasionally to take photos of Hercules for reference. I think challenging was a bit a bit of an understatement. At some point the thought of giving up crossed my mind, because early on it looked nothing like Hercules. I had to throw in some of the pieces so that it could somewhat resemble him, which allowed me to make major tweaks until I was happy with the way it turned out. As always, it begins with a sphere in Zbrush with dynamesh.

Final image:

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References:

Shere Kahn, The Jungle Book

Another classic Disney character, also from The Jungle Book. By far my favorite character in the movie. I remember as a kid rooting for Kahn to tear Mowgli's skinny you know what to pieces! yet another challenging piece, but I'm glad the way it turned out.

Render:

process:

Baloo, The Jungle Book.

Yet another attempt at a Disney character. The Jungle Book is my all time favorite Disney classic. I think my mom went deaf temporarily hearing me sing the bare necessities song all the time. This was without a doubt a challenge to sculpt, being an animal. I think the important thing is to persevere. It hardly looked like Baloo until all the pieces of the puzzle came together. May the bare necessities of life come to you.

Process:

Timelapse:

Kuzco, The Emperor's new groove

Another Disney character study, this one being more recent. My youngest sister at the time watched the show all the time, which is how I came to know the character, the self centered jerk that he is. The character was challenging to model, especially the mouth area.

Final image:

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Timelapse:

Queen Of The Galaxy

I have been working on quite a number of stylized models, so I did this quick one to take a short break from them. With this piece I wanted a subject that gave of beauty, power, and elegance. For some reason I was inspired heavily by a flamingo.

Render:

Sculpting process, from a sphere in Zbrush using dynamesh:

Render and PS comp steps and closeup:

Arthur

Disney's The Sword In The Stone. Apparently it didn't do so well for the company, but I have nothing but fond memories of the film growing up. Only mt second stylized human model next to the machinist. As always, I began with Zbrush. I started from a sphere to completion. In order to refine the sculpt I used zremesher in order to get a somewhat clean topology, not something I would do for a production model.

Final Image:

Process:

Nori ma' aanu

It's been a while since I did one of these. This creature dwells in mountain areas, very large yet rarely seen. The locals who have encountered it call it Nori ma' aanu, which means "whisper in the mountains".
I did a few rough drawings in my sketchbook, then jumped right into Zbrush. Unfortunately I lost my friggin sketchbook.

Final render:

Zbrush process:

Photoshop process(photo textures and render passes):

Close up:

Polypaint:

A few characters from the simpsons.

I did these to celebrate the #everysimpsonsever marathon that went on on FXX. I had a blast doing these, and they were indeed challenging. This helped me improve even more in learning the importance of evaluating references, all too important in translating a 2D image into a 3D sculpt. As always, my weapon of choice was Zbrush.

Snake Jailbird:

Moe Szyslak:

Kent Brockman:

Principal Skinner:

Apu:

Edna:

Groundskeeper Willie:

Joe Quimby:

Mr. Burns:

Sea Captain:

"Stitch"

Continuing down the road of stylized modeling, which led me to Stitch from Disney's Lilo & Stitch. This character was definitely a challenge, especially his head. Getting it to look right from all views was near impossible, part of the things that might work well in 2D but not necessarily in 3D. In the end, I'm pleased with the way it turned out.

The process began with a high resolution digital sculpture in Zbrush, then I did retopology in Topogun. Maps were baked in xNormal and texturing in ZBrush using polypaint.