Week Summary

This week I got back into my robot Zbrush character model. As I missed a week, as last week I was focused on the UI art test I wanted to catch up with my model, so on Monday I started to give the head more detail by adding in wires at the back of it's head. More to the head will be added at a later date.

I added the wires by using the curve tube insert brush, By using the lazy mouse setting you can get a smoother result and keep snapping turned on so it snaps to the base mesh, this way it is easier to edit. I like how the wires overlap each other with these settings enabled it gives it a more of a realistic look.

I was also thinking of adding the head piece above (Still in rough stage) but I though it represented to closely to the robot 'Chappie' and I didn't really like the idea after I saw it on my model.

On Tuesday, I started to sculpt the body of the robot. I started the body off by inserting a sphere and by using the same method as before with the group loops in which I would slice selections of the sphere first then group loop them. With this I could take control of each panel by using the move topology brush and edit it the way I wanted to.

With the basic shape down I started to move areas where I wanted them. I started to add higher details along the way such as more wires to the stomach area using the same method as before. And I attempted to create one of the robots arms. I still wasn't so sure on how to do this and decided to put a insert brush object of a arm in and extract from that, like I did in my previous model the (Sci-fi roman character).

I did not really like the outcome of how the arm was going and thought it was a harder way of creating hard surface parts. I decided to delete the arm and start again at another time.

On Wednesday I could not get much work done as I had an appointment to attend that day. But I did start to place down and shape a new arm by inserting meshes such as a cylindrical shape and working with that using the Z Modeler brush. I have never worked with it before but I think it will be a great way to finally get the arms created and other parts of the body as it is good to get hard edged results.

I did go into shadowbox and create a gear shape but I have not yet used this for my model, I may do or not but it was good to have ago in shadowbox and get familiar with it.

On Thursday, I did not continue with my robot model as I had a hospital appointment.

Due to being fairly busy with appointments this week, on Friday my main focus was to get more of my model produced and spend longer doing so. I wanted to get one of the arms near completed. Because I was still new to using the Z modeler method I was quite slow but I did experiment with it and found it to be very useful and it is becoming easier to use.

This image shows the Z modeler in use, with this you can insert other poly-groups in which you can edit such as extrude, scale and bevel and other options if need be. The ones I use the most so far are the extrude and Q mesh. The image above was my first attempt but I thought it looked to clean in style. I wanted to go for a a steampunk/dystopian theme.

This image shows the end result by using the same methods as the one mentioned.

This is the full arm just missing the hand. The arm is not yet finalised I will add smaller details such as wires and bolts later and to keep in mind about retopology, as I would like to make it a little softer, but not to much as I would like to keep that hard edge and keep the model fairly low in poly count. I did insert a mechanical IMM brush for the bend in this arm, and I will in areas where I think it's needed but I will tend to create my own.

I did create a hand but I do not think it fit well with the rest of the model.