Male vs Female Skull comparison
I learned how to differentiate between the anatomy of a male skull and a female skull by referring to the same parts of the skull in each image that looked different:
Red: Slope of Frontal bone
Blue: Supraciliary arches
Yellow: Mental eminence
Purple: Genial Angle (angle of the jaw)
This image was labeled using Adobe Photoshop by adding an extra layer which was used for my labels.
Labeling a Human Skull
I needed to sculpt a monster’s head in Z-Brush. In order to do that I had to understand the anatomy of the human skull so I can understand why a head is shaped the way it is. I will base my monster’s head on that of a human’s skull.
Now that I knew the different bones and where they’re located in the human skull I was ready to apply this theoretical activity in Z-Brush where I began sculpting my monster’s head.
Sculpting a Monster’s Head
After understanding the anatomy of the human skull I was able to apply my theoretical knowledge in the software Z-brush which required my technical skills so I can sculpt a monster’s head.
This is my finished product which I added eyes and horns to
-This is a time-lapse of my monster head sculpting process made using ZBrush’s “movie” feature; which gathers all your sculpting history for an object during sculpting it to create a video like the one seen above.
For this project I used four brushes in Z-Brush which where:
-The Standard brush to add detail to my face
-The move brush to reshape my starting sphere into a a head
-The Dam Standard brush to add minor details such as the spirals
-The Clay Build Up brush to add a muscular texture
I sculpted another head in ZBrush using the same brushes and techniques excluding the Dam Standard brush. It was a concept of an alien zombie king based on DC comic’s character “Brainiac” and PopCap studio’s “Dr. Zomboss” from the vast videogame franchise “Plants vs Zombies”.
My reference image/character: DC comic’s character “Brainiac”. I based off my character’s headband’s on that of Brainiac.
PopCap studios “Dr. Zomboss” from the “Plants vs Zombies” franchise. I based off my character’s facial appearance and expression on that of Dr. Zomboss’s.
However, both of my reference characters are non-human evil figures with high power in the story they are in. Hence, my character is also an evil ruler in power who is not a human.
The finished product of my alien zombie king sculpt. For next time, I look forward towards smoothening out my sculpt more efficiently. I was unable to do that properly during this process. When I tried smoothening out the more harder surfaces surfaces, they shrunk, which is not what I intended to do with my sculpt.
This is a time-lapse of my alien zombie king sculpting process.
Nose labeling:
To learn how to sculpt a nose in ZBrush, first I had to know the different parts of a nose and where they are located so I can sculpt them properly. To do this I labeled a diagram of a nose’s parts.
This is my labeled nose.
Nose Sculpting
I sculpted 3 noses using the knowledge I acquired from labeling my nose previously.
Nose 1:
-A time-lapse of sculpting my first nose’s process.
I wanted to preview how this nose would look like on a human’s head. While sculpting the nose, I gave it the features of an elderly male. Hence, I sculpted a simple head for an old man with in the same ZBrush file of my first nose.
The old man’s head which I sculpted.
-A live model of my first nose in FBX format from Sketchfab.
-A time-lapse of a quickly and simply sculpting an old man’s head.
For this sculpt I used the following brushes:
The “Standard brush” to shape and outline details in my model.
The “Move brush” to move and expand certain features in my model.
The “Clay build up brush” to give my models more details and realism.
The “Dam Standard brush” to give more details, specifically to my nose.
The “Alpha 7 texture” which gave my nose and some of the old man more accurate worn out skin looks.
The “Trim Dynamics brush” to flatten out some long surfaces that looked unnatural to have in a nose or head.
The “Trim Rect brush/tool” to slice off parts of my separate first nose sculpt which I did not need. This made my final render let my nose stand out further more.
Nose 2:
Both images of my second nose are lit brightly to show more detail on the nose. In this case despite being lit brightly there is hardly any skin detail which further shows that this is a young individual’s nose.
-A live model of my second nose in FBX format from Sketchfab.
-A time-lapse of sculpting my second nose’s process.
For this sculpt I made a more younger looking noses by using the following brushes with not too many skin details so that my nose would not look wrinkly and worn out due old age.
The “Standard brush” to shape the overall structure of my model.
The “Move brush” to move and expand certain features in my model.
The “Clay build up brush” to give my models more detention and realism.
The “Dam Standard brush” to give more details, specifically to my nose.
The “Trim Dynamics brush” to flatten out some long surfaces that looked unnatural to have in a nose and to reduce unintended detail to make my nose look younger.
The “Alpha 7 texture” was not used in this sculpt because as mentioned earlier, this tool paints a worn out skin texture making my young nose look old due to have wrinkles which is not what I wanted.
The “Trim Rect brush/tool” to slice off parts of my separate first nose sculpt which I did not need. This made my final render let my nose stand out further more.
Nose 3:
For the third sculpt I wanted to make an unhealthy nose.
_A live model of my 3rd sculpted nose in ZBrush
-A time-lapse of sculpting my third nose.
For this sculpt I used the following brushes:
The “Standard brush” to shape and outline details in my model.
The “Move brush” to move and expand certain features in my model.
The “Clay build up brush” to give my models more details and realism.
The “Dam Standard brush” to give more details, specifically to my nose. Also to help with aging my nose.
The “Alpha 7 texture” which gave my nose the texture of elderly skin due to unhealthy habits, hence, a more accurate worn out skin looks.
The “Trim Dynamics brush” to flatten out some long surfaces that looked unnatural to have in a nose or head.
The “Trim Rect brush/tool” to slice off parts of my separate first nose sculpt which I did not need. This made my final render let my nose stand out further more.
4th nose practice:
Mouth labeling:
A labeled diagram of a mouth. (Using Adobe Photoshop)
I modeled 3 mouths in ZBrush
Mouth 1:
A live model of my first mouth’s sculpt in ZBrush.
A time-lapse of the process behind sculpting my first mouth in ZBrush.
To make this mouth I used the following brushes:
-The “Dam Standard” to outline where my mouth where going to be on my Dynamesh sphere (ZBrush’s default object)
-The “Standard” to shape how my mouth how big was it going to be.
-The “Move” to give my mouth a slight curve so I can form the Orbicularis Oris. Imagining how this mouth’s bite would like on an apple helped me sculpt this bone more accurately.
-The “Clay Buildup” to give my lips a more rigid texture bringing more realism to my overall mouth.
Mouth 2:
A live model of my second mouth’s sculpt in ZBrush.
-A time-lapse of the process behind sculpting my second mouth in ZBrush.
To make this mouth I used the following brushes and alpha:
-The “Dam Standard” to outline where my mouth where going to be on my Dynamesh sphere (ZBrush’s default object)
-The “Standard” to shape how my mouth how big was it going to be.
-The “Move” to give my mouth a slight curve so I can form the Orbicularis Oris. Imagining how this mouth’s bite would like on an apple helped me sculpt this bone more accurately.
-The “Clay Buildup” to give my lips a more rigid texture bringing more realism to my overall mouth.
-“60” to give my lips a worn out and possibly unhealthy looking texture.
Mouth 3:
A live model of my third mouth’s sculpt in ZBrush.
-A time-lapse of the process behind sculpting my third mouth in ZBrush.
To make this mouth I used the following brushes and alpha:
-The “Dam Standard” to outline where my mouth where going to be on my Dynamesh sphere (ZBrush’s default object)
-The “Standard” to shape how my mouth how big was it going to be.
-The “Move” to give my mouth a slight curve so I can form the Orbicularis Oris. Imagining how this mouth’s bite would like on an apple helped me sculpt this bone more accurately.
-The “Clay Buildup” to give my lips a more rigid texture bringing more realism to my overall mouth.
-“24” to give my lips a worn out and possibly unhealthy looking texture.
Mouth 4:
-A time-lapse of the process behind sculpting my fourth mouth in ZBrush.
-The “Dam Standard” to outline where my mouth where going to be on my Dyna-mesh sphere (ZBrush’s default object)
-The “Standard” to shape how my mouth how big was it going to be.
-The “Move” to give my mouth a slight curve so I can form the Orbicularis Oris. Imagining how this mouth’s bite would like on an apple helped me sculpt this bone more accurately.
-The “Clay Buildup” to give my lips a more rigid texture bringing more realism to my overall mouth.
-“31” to give my lips a realistic looking texture.
Sculpting the ears
To understand the unique shape of the ears I began by labeling a diagram so I know where each part is located and how its formed. I did this using Adobe Photoshop.
My labeled ear diagram.
I modeled 4 ears using the same brushes:
Move brush: shaping the overall ear.
Standard brush: giving the ear detail and more definition.
Masking: extruding the ear outside Z-Brush’s Dyna mesh Sphere.
Ear 1:
-Time-lapse of the process behind sculpting my first ear.
Ear 2:
-Time-lapse of the process behind sculpting my second ear.
Ear 3:
For this sculpt, I used an extra brush: clay build up so that I can improve the overall definition of my ear. I used this brush instead of the standard because it was able to highlight smaller parts in my ear unlike the standard one which was used mainly for sculpting the bigger parts.
-Time-lapse of the process behind sculpting my third ear.
Fourth ear:
For this sculpt,
I used an extra brush: clay build up so that I can improve the overall definition of my ear. I used this brush instead of the standard because it was able to highlight smaller parts in my ear unlike the standard one which was used mainly for sculpting the bigger parts.
I used the Dam standard brush to create small details in the holes of the ear so their outline could show more clearly.
I used the alpha 7 and 12 to create slight wrinkles on my ear so it could appear more real with a skin like texture.
-Live model of my fourth sculpted ear.
-Time-lapse of the process behind sculpting my fourth ear.
Eye (not eyeball):
Labeling:
Done using Adobe Photoshop.
I sculpted two eyes using Z-Brush using the following brushes:
“Clay Build up brush” to create the detail and overall features of my eyes.
“Move brush” to bring forward and backwards part of my eyes to give it realistic dimensions.
“Dam Standard brush” to give my eyes a slight hint of definition.
Sculpting my first eye:
Modeling and rendering an eye ball in Autodesk Maya:
The render of my first eyeball trial in week 6’s digital sculpture lecture:
These are the assets I used:
The material I used for my Iris and its blue color.
The bump texture I used for my Iris’s glossy part.
The texture I used for my eye’s Sclera.
The hdri I used for my “Arnold” “Sky-dome light”.
Unfortunately I was unable to record my workflow of making this eye.
The process of making my second eye:
I wanted to prepare myself for the upcoming “Villain head” assignment by making an evil looking eye. There is not much I can change in an eye without taking away from its realism except for its color. I decided to go with a crimson red color to symbolize blood. I felt as if a dark red blood would represent an element of gore caused by an evil being.
To change my eye’s color I mean to change its iris’s color by using a crimson red iris image for my texture.
The bump would remain the same since it only effects my eyeball text5ure’s geometry and not color.
I did however get a new hdri image of a darker more “evil” looking background lighting.
The assets I used for my second eye:
The material I used for my Iris and its crimson red color.
The bump texture I used for my Iris’s glossy part.
The texture I used for my eye’s Sclera.
The dark hdri I used for my Arnold Sky-dome background lighting.
The process of making my second eye:
I started by adding a sphere because it was the default shape had the most resemblance to an eyeball.
This eyeball was going to be my iris which has the shape of a semi sphere, so I deleted half of my sphere using face mode.
I doubled clicked on the move tool to open its sub menu.
I navigated to the soft select menu and enabled it. Then I adjusted its effectiveness using the ramp shown above.
With my soft selection ready, I moved my desired area inwards to create the basic shape of my iris.
I selected a circular shape and extruded it in to create a way for my scene’s light to go inside my iris.
My extruded hole had sharp edges which I responded to by beveling.
I navigated to [UV]> [UV editor] to reshape how my future material would be painted on my object.
This was the UV editor menu.
I navigated to [UV]> [camera based] so I
Adjusting the camera’s angle on my matrial would not change its location on my object. To actually do this, I navigated to [modify]>[unfold].
Now, my would be circular image texture would be properly layer flat on my circular shaped object.
To get my matrial’s dimensions synced with those of my object all I did was scale and re-located its “UV shells” which are the faces on my image texture.
My iris’s UV was set up. Now I can add my image texture properly on my object’s altered UV map. I added a Arnold’s AI standard surface material.
I navigated the base color’s checker box and selected “file” texture. Then, I chose my red iris image from the folder icon.
An eye has a thin shiny transparent layer covering the iris. To achieve this look, I navigated to the geometry section of my recently added shader, clicked the checker box and picked the folder option.
From my desktop I imported the iris blue square image.
To make the sclera, I added another sphere to resemble its shape and scaled it slightly larger than the iris’s semi-sphere.
I navigated to the soft select menu and moved my desired selection forward to further resemble the sclera.
I added an AI standard surface and replaced it with the ceramic preset.
After, I imported an image texture by selecting the base color checker box and picking file.
I navigated to the Arnold menu to add a sky dome to light my scene. Moreover, I clicked on the base color’s checker box, selected file and imported my night mansion hdri.
To refine my sclera’s look I changed the type of subdivision it had to cat Clark since this option’s subdivided wireframe had a more spherical shape similar to that of my object.
I increased the color offset to slightly darken my sclera.
To blend my sclera with my iris, I navigated to my sclera’s material’s transmission’s checker box and selected the ramp option.
I altered the ramp shown above so my sclera would have some transparency whilst retaining visibility.
To make my sclera appear as more realistic I adding an extra texture over it.
I navigated to the sclera’s geometry window to add an image texture from the bump mapping’s checker box.
The bump image texture was too harsh which caused me to decrease its depth greatly until it would be noticed upon a close look.
I altered my sclera’s material attribute as a final touch to make it look shiner and more realistic.
This is my final result after I eliminated my hdri’s camera visibility which left its light effect on my eyeball.
Assignment 2:
Sculpting a villain head:
My initial idea for a villain is an angry insane demonic male who feasts on blood hence giving him a crimson red appearance.
To visualize my villain’s color scheme I used the website “Color wheel, a color palette generator | Adobe Color” which upon importing a picture in provides you with a series of images with a breakdown their main color pallet of the scene.
I imported the following image of one of my soon to be character references:
Darth Maul from “Starwars: The Phantom Menace” (1999)
After importing the following image, I picked this character’s color scheme for my villain:
Adobe’s generated character.
The generated character’s color scheme.
According to the website “Gurney Journey: Color Zones of Face”, a white human head’s color is divided into 3 areas:
-The forehead which has a yellowish tint due to mostly only skull bones being there.
-Forehead to bottom of nose is red because of the high amount of blood in the area.
-Bottom of nose to chin has a bluish tint due to the increased amount of veins in that area.
Moldboard of villain’s/fearsome characters references:
I will group my reference images in categories from what I will take from their appearance.
From the Color Zone website.
Bibliography:
Gurney, J. (no date) Color zones of the face, Gurney Journey: Color Zones of the Face. Available at: http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/2008/05/color-zones-of-face.html (Accessed: 22 November 2023).
Applying my newly learned facial texturing skills on a practice Z brush model before texturing my villain’s head.
Note: when texturing, always turn off [Z add] and turn on [Z RGB].
The [Z add] and [Z RGB] menus.
Upon opening Z-Brush, I added a demo anime head. Furthermore, I selected the Spray feature for how my alpha 7 was going to be layer on my mesh. I selected basic material and picked a very light red color.
Problem: whenever I changed the color I wanted to use for my texture, the whole mesh would change color. Solution: After picking my color I navigated to [color]and clicked on [FillLayer] which permanently kept my desired overall skin color.
After painting my mesh with both different alphas and colors, I wanted to capture its UV map. I did this by navigating to [ZPlugin]>[UV master] and clicked on [Unwarp].
To get the UV map’s image, still within [Zplugin] I opened the [Multi Map Exporter], clicked on texture from Polypaint] and selected my exporting location.
This is my head’s UV map.
I imported my model into Autodesk Maya as an FBX model. I assigned an AI Arnold shader with a skin preset.
Under the subsurface menu of my shader, I clicked on the color’s checker box and selected file texture. I selected my UV map.
After adding some lights to my scene this is my finished rendered result:
Front view
Back view
Method 2 “Spot-light”:
This method would require me to paint my mesh using an image.
This is the image I used.
I began with a model of a mouth. I navigated to [Texture]>[Import] and selected my image.
This is the Spot-light, it allows me turn my image’s opacity down so i can position its lips right on my model by scaling rotating it. The arrow shows the opacity feature.
I painted over my mesh by selecting the “SkinShade4” material and the free hand tool. This worked by using the image’s alignment as the color that will be painted on my mesh. This is also my final result.
Third way “Spot-light head UV map”:
This is the UV map I used.
I selected my spot-light tool again and positioned my UV map on top my face. I also did this for each side of the face.
I selected the skinsahde4 material and began painting on each side based on how I scaled and moved the UV map along.
This is my finished product.
Villain reference images:
supraciliary arch:
Namor the Submariner from Marvel comics
The Lizard from “The Amazing Spider-Man” (2012)
Wendigo from “Avenger’s Initiative” (videogame) (2012)
Abomination “The incredible Hulk” (2008)
Zygomatic bone:
Pennywise from “IT” (2017)
General Mandible from “Antz” (1998)
Killer Croc from DC comics
Ears:
During the fourth weeks digital sculpture lecture, I learned that ears grow bigger as time passes. My lecturer exemplified vampires as to supposedly having long ears due to their much longer lifespan than humans.
I want my character to appear aged to give off a sense of wisdom. To do this I will increase the size of his ears.
Dracula from “Nosferatu” (1922) directed by F.W. Murnau.
Master Yoda from “Starwars” (He is 900 years old).
Zygomatic arch and mandible:
Red Hulk from Marvel comics
Red Skull from “Captain America: The First Avenger” (2012)
From week 7’s lecture
One of the ways I will make my character appear more threatening is to give them the ability to bite with an increased strength of 650 PSI (pounds per square inch).
For a character to have a strong bite their masseter has to be larger than that of a human being.
However, if a character were to have bigger mouth bones, their lateral orbital boarder needs to be sacrificed and become smaller. This is to prevent its breaking under the larger mouth muscles.
Moreover, I will not increase the masseter too much because I still want my character to have a defined super ciliary arch.
Scars:
Two Face from “The Dark Knight” (2008)
Note: the above character’s scar and facial disfigurement align properly on his skull. I aim to achieve such look by specifically laying out my character’s scars based on the shape of their skull’s bones with the [Alt] “Dam standard brush”.
Lucifer Morningstar from “Lucifer” (2016-2021)
This is another example of how a character’s scars lay on their head based on the skull’s shape.
Darth Malagus from Star-Wars
This character’s scar are not as accurate as the rest but one thing I did pick up on is that the scar pattern would follow the super ciliary arch’s shape and end with it.
Note: the characters Abomination, General Mandible, Killer Croc, Red Skull and Darth Malagus appear to have a more defined facial musculature than an average human being. This means their skull’s raw shape is easier to see than the rest of the characters and average humans. This makes them appear scarier to me because skulls are what I resonate with seeing a dead person in film which can often invoke fear.
(insert fat label)
Darth Maul from “Starwars: The Phantom Menace” (1999)
The above character’s tattoos layout properly in shape on his skull’s features. As if it is a wireframe of his head. I will use this image to plot out my character’s scars.
Darth Maul also some what resembles a devil/demon because of his horns. However something unique about him to me is that while he may not be a king, he does look like one because of his multiple horns around his cranium that look like a crown. Hence, evil kings are often feared by their people. This enables me plan a slight royal look for my character to portray him as powerful.
Eyes:
To make my character look insane and insane to convey fear I compared these two characters:
Jack Torranc from “The Shinning” (1977)
The above character’s eyes resemble insanity. However, to know why I compared his eye’s expression to a normal character.
Henry Jones from Indiana Jones
1: Jack’s maxilla is raised higher than Henry’s.
2:Jack’s eyes are directly looking at an object with determination unlike Henry’s whos eyes seem to be relaxed.
3:Jack’s eyes are diverted downwards representing an angry look unlike Henry’s whos eyes are pointed upwards in a more relaxed position.
My villain will have human shaped eyes with a red iris. Based on the previously shown villain’s, most of them have an inhumanly iris color. Since I am going for a red blood theme for my villain I will also be making his iris the color red.
Red Iris reference
My character’s reference skull:
My character’s reference skull. As seen, its super ciliary arch is strongly defined.
Fat anatomy around the human head:
Labeled areas of fat on the human skull.
Every human has the same amount of fats distributed in their body. All of which are found in the same areas laying accordingly to the skull’s shape. What differentiates our fats; is how big each fat area is. What I can take away from this is: to avoid sculpting random blobs of “fat” on my character so they do not appear as if they have more or less fat areas on their head. Also, to avoid randomly sculpting fats on my character’s face and instead sculpt them based on their location in the same way to how I would lay my character’s scars and tattoos based on the skull’s bones.
While making my villain, I recorded the process. I will eventually go deeper in detail.
So far, I have given my villain’s head an overall shape and sculpted his facial features.
This is stage 2 of modeling my villain 06/12/2023
I applied the rage and happy expression to form an insane expression action units to my character which I demonstrated how I did so in the action unit part of this site.
The combined action units of each emotion I will make are:
2: outer brow raiser
4: Lower eye brow
6: Cheek raiser
9: Nose wrinkle
12: Lip corner puller
I used 4 imported alphas to further texture the details of my villain’s skin. All these alphas were downloaded from “Maxon’s” website’s library. This is its linked:
ZBrush – The World’s Leading Digital Sculpting Solution (pixologic.com)
Each alpha was meant for a specific part of the head.
“DM Scale” for the scars.
“Dragon Skin” for the main head’s texture and his under lip inflamed skin.
“KD natural” for the horns.
“SW Reptile” for the exposed inner skin by the horns.
I also used 2 default Z-Brush alphas:
“Alpha 7” for the nose
“Alpha 60” for the lip marks
These are all the alphas I used.
This is my villain with he alphas also as my finished model, the next step would be to render it. I will texture my villain using Adobe Substance Painter and Autodesk Maya.
I imported my model into Adobe Substance Painter, textured it using multiple diffrent skin materials varying from the colors black, red and gold.
Next, I imported the model into Autodesk Maya where, I lit it, modled and added eye balls to it.
These are my final renders:
Z Brush to Autodesk Maya pipeline guide:
This is the sub tool I will take thorough Z brush to Maya.
I duplicated it and made a low poly version of it so Maya can eventually handle the amount of polys on the sub tool.
To reorganize the faces of my model, i clicked on “Z remesher under Zremesher.
To make my model compatible for a UV mapq
To sync the active points with my poly count for a higher resolution, I increased the subdivisions of my model in the geometry section.
To apply the skin texture to my new low poly model, I navigated to “project” >”project all”.
To export my model, I clicked on the export button with a low subdivision of only my mesh.
I imported my model into Maya as an OBJ.
I assigned an AI standard surface material with a skin preset to it.
In the subsurface menu I clicked on the “subsurface color” checker box.
I assigned a file texture of the UV map I exported from Z Brush.
To add the displacement texture, I clicked on the top arrow of my object and pressed on the displacement map checker box.
I changed the subdivision type to “catclark”.
I added some lights and rendered my image an this is my finished product.
Action Unit expressions by “FAC”:
“A system of defining facial movements and their appearance on the face. Originally conceived by Carl-Herman Hjortsjö. But developed by Paul Ekman and published in 1978.”
Luscombe A. 2023 “FACS” 13/12/12023, University of West London, Ealing Campus
Referring to the chart above, I applied the action units of the sad and happy facial expressions.
By reffering to the list above, yopu can see that I used the move tool to create the subtle details of the happy action units 1, 2 and 6. I excluded the
By referring to the list above, you can see that I used the move tool to create the subtle details of the sad action units 1, 4 and 15.
This is the process of how to import an action unit expression into Autodesk Maya:
I imported my sad model.
I navigated to “Zplugin”>”Maya blend export” and once I clicked on export, Maya automatically opened.
This is how Maya looked like upon opening.
The “Blend shapes” menu controlled each action unit I previously set up in Z Brush as shown in the image above.
In my timeline, i wanted to key frame my expression to make a video out of it, I selected my starting point and 48’s frame (2 seconds as per 24fps).
In each frame, I clicked on key and set each action unit to the number I needed it to be on. Thus my sad facial expression was animated.