Friday, July 5, 2013

Tip: Making a 2D drawing be more usable for Rigging

Happy Friday,

Today, I wanted to share a technique that i've started using thats helping me to create 2D face sketches more usable for Rigging.  I'm not a professional Designer or Modeler but hope it is helpful.
 

1. first I created a 2D concept idea example(s) with some rough poses.

2. in ZBrush I sketched at the concept not paying too much attention to exact likeness because the design could change before making the topology for rigging.


Damian Standard Brush --- I used for indents and adding big changes like eye socket divet and eyebrows.
Pinch  --- I used for getting more pronounced crease like getting the lips to look more closed.
Move Topological  --- I used for sculpting silhouette like head, jaw, bending ears
flatten -- I used to get flat side of cheek, and make front of brow flat
clay -- I used like Damian Standard but for very small changes
also, when I ran out of room to make indentation I used (ctrl+d) to add more subdivisions.
And when I couldn't smooth a corner because too many faces (I went into geometry and lower divisions and smoothed there instead)


3. I imported the ZBrush sketch into Maya and took side, front, and 3/4 screenshot.

4. in Photoshop I imported the screenshots from 3. and lowered opacity.

5. I sketched construction shapes in light blue thinking about roughly following 3D ZBrush sketch.

6.  I drew over the blue layer made in 5. with two darker layers.  The first darker layer I used for overall landmarks.  The second I used sparingly to close shapes.


cheers!
Nate

Inspired by
Daniel Williams's ZBrush tutorials (pointpusher dot com)
Ben Caldwell's Fantasy Cartooning