The creation of eyelashes is one of the most complicated tasks of a human model, there are different ways to create them, but the one that I am going to explain is the method which I feel most comfortable with; in addition, to this the result can be very realistic.

Select the edges that will be used for the start point of the lower eyelashes.

Click the “Create shape from edges” button and set the “Shape type” to “Linear”

Make the shape renderable with a thickness of 0,5 with 3 sides. It is advised to use between 4 to 6 steps for distant shots and about 8 to 12 for close-ups.

Now Right-Click in the “Snap” button and check “Vertex” in the options dialog.

Use the “Refine” command to add extra vertex points to the shape. It is important to remember that the centre of the eyelash is more densely packed with hairs than the outer areas; add the vertexes accordingly.

Copy the shape 2 times and locate the copies as demonstrated in the image; The first should be place a little forward and lower than the original, the second a little farther forward and lower again.

With the”create line” tool connect the vertex in the three shapes, working always from the eye and moving outwards (this is important).

Remove both shapes cloned previously and the useless segments in the first shape.

Now select the central vertexes of each line, Right-click and soften the shapes by selecting the “Smooth” option from the pop-up menu.

The last stage of modelling should be to move the vertexes at the ends to add a bit of randomness to the lashes. Also we can group some of the ends of the lashes to simulate clumping. This is best applied to the longer lashes, and bear in mind that we will be adding an opacity map later which will clip the ends of the lashes.

Convert the “splines” to “Editable Poly” and delete the “Caps”

Now simply assign a very dark brown standard material to the lashes and put a gradient map in the “opacity” slot.

Finally, repeat the whole process for the upper lashes and make a mirror of both shapes to locate them in the other eye. Again, you may wish to tweak the end vertexes to add randomness to the lashes. There, it’s easy See?

INTRO

Hi everyone reading this overview about making-of my work “DNA_priority”. This overview is software-specific as I have used 3DsMAX and Rhinoceros for making a picture and Adobe Photoshop for postproduction but there are no limitations for other software users due to most of principals of production are the same. I will try to introduce to you how I made it. So there is my workflow below:

- decisions
- modeling
- lighting
- texturing
- rendering
- postproduction

Before we start I want you to know that some techniques and solutions that I used can come in sight as something incorrect and maybe strange but anyway I will explain the process as it is. 3D as I see is a some kind of art and there are no limits and ultimate rules after all. So I hope you will like the article.

DECISIONS

Generally before the project have to be started it is important to decide to yourself what your work will look like. I mean the moodand impressions of the final image. I think it is not a good idea to changeyour mind about the style in the middle of the process. But if you sure that your newstyle or mood is better than you are workin on, so do it – change everything. In this case during the processI have spent a lot of time sitting infront of my monitor and just look “inside” viewports because Ihave no idea how to make it more expressive. So if I didn’t like the result I delete all the files ofmodifications.

>>>Tip: pressing SHIFT+DEL is a best way to make your work better.
If you don’t like what you do, who will?

So before I started I decide to show a symbiosis and make the picture non-stylised and realistic as I can. And I thought that filling the scene with abstract and incomprehensibleobjects will solve a good fake effect (as for me I like artworks that fake me out and looks real.As one of my teachers said:”You know that it is fake, but you don’t know where it is”).So all theese was my guidance in the process and I followed it.

>>>Tip: If you know what you want the half of the process is finished.

MODELING

So the next step is modeling. All the geometry in the scene was created withNURBS and POLY with NURMS subdivision techniques. The mesh is quiet simple,so I don’t see any reasons for deep explanation of modeling but however maybesomeone will find it useful if a few samples will be shown…

This is an overall mesh view at the end of modeling process. Well… Actually when I see this and the final image I arrive at a conclusion that the mesh is “overloaded”. In my oppinion the rule “you shouldn’t model it if nobody can see it” is completely correct. But sometimes it is impossible to know what does the final image look like. And in this case exact positions of objects wasn’t determined yet. But anyway it’s always better to realise a proper distribution of mesh density: the closer the object to camera the higher density should be provided and vice versa. Of course this is not a strong principle especially when you are going to use effects (DOF for example) but it will sufficiently increase the perfomance and rendering speed.

OK. To create these objects (except of wires and other small details) I’ve used Rhinoceros.I found this software very useful when I need to create smooth surfaces that do not require of “clean” meshes and normals. As you see all of this objects consist of triangles withdensity distributed regulary over the surface depending on it’s curvature.

>>>Tip: Such a geometry is still editable but Idon’think this is a good idea to do it directly.So it would be logical if we have final meshes inNURBS modeling output.

Rhinoceros has many powerful tools and is very flexible in modeling. Except of allexported meshes contain UV coords (in some cases it really helps in mapping). In additionit brings a lot of fun.

This figure shows some of geometry was made in 3DsMAX. So everything is very simple as you see.There are input meshes on the left side and final meshes after NURMS subdivision applied to iton the right side. Priorly it is Editable poly with subdivision surface turned on but thereare no global difference if MSmooth modifier would be applied to low-poly later.After completing a low-poly model it is very helpfull for mapping to apply polygon ID’s and assign Milti/Sub-Object material with differentdiffuse color attribute. And besides it helps to distinguish objectsin viewports to get a proper composition.

>>>Tip: To meshes with extremely high number of polygons on output it’s better to applydifferent subdivision values for viewport and render due to high valuesfor viewport may sufficiently slow down VGA adapter perfomance (for figure abovethose values are the same with isoline display option turned on).

After all the geometry is completed and have a proper position in the sceneI have started the next step “lighting”.

LIGHTING

Talking about lighting it is necessarily to bear in mind that everything should be in conjunction withrenderer you have chosen earlier. This time I chose Light Tracer as Advanced Lighting (Default Scanline Renderer). So due to this I am able to use Skylight and IES Sun and don’t have to worry that something would be wrong with rendering. You can see lights positions on the figure below with IES Sunparameters.

As for Skylight I left it’s params by default. After some renderer adjustments that’s what I hadon output:

Ofcourse it is only a first steps to finat rendering but it is necessary to decide an overall light ina scene before texturing and then calibrate textures to lighting. As you see it is time to go on with texturing.

This is a multi-part tutorial on creating a Demon-like ‘Lok Warrior’ with realistic muscle anatomy. In the first day of this tutorial we created a base mesh for our character using poly modeling. Today we will take this mesh into ZBrush and sculpt intricate muscle anatomy. On day three we will texture the creature and add the finishing touches to the artwork.

Let’s begin day 2 of this tutorial.

Step 40

Open ZBrush and click on ‘Import an OBJ file’. Select our exported object (this way you don’t need to drag the object into the ZBrush workspace) and select ‘Edit mode’.

Step 41

Now subdivide the model by clicking Cntrl + D to create more polygons. Press X to select a symmetrical brush and start sculpting the torso while holding down the Alt key on your keyboard. The red lines below are where you have to sculpt while holding down the Alt key. The blue areas are where you have to sculpt without holding the Alt key down. Please pay attention to the brush size and Z intensity too.

Step 42

Use this image as a guide when preparing the back.

Step 43

We will finish the front part of the torso first. Press Ctrl + D again and now we are on subdivision level 3. Try to form the chest and stomach muscles using the inflat brush. You can increase the Draw size and Z intensity if necessary.

Introduction:

“Happiness is a Blue Bird that one afternoon settled on our warm palm and left us something like a trace of a lost paradise that never was reached by anyone and that everyone dream with at some moment, sleeping or in wakefulness”.

Concept:

From some time ago I was interested on making an allegoric picture with the theme of happiness, or happiness’ absence. The idea was making a stimulating, oniric image, that together with the title and the shown elements, allowed the watchers to make their own interpretation about what they see. The image moves us to that lost paradise, home of the blue birds (that symbolize happiness), todiscover with our own eyes how a mysterious figure go exterminating everyone of these beautifulbirds. On the original idea, the intention is getting the watch to feel as playing part of the scene, since we see the “happiness hunter” making a break on his path of death, when he realizesabout our presence. Are we just watchers of a dream or are we the hunting mates?

Sketches:

Designing a hunting day – I normally use to work with colour sketches, but in that work I startedfrom a really basic initial sketch, mainly for making a little study of the lighting and thegeneral composition of the scene. The dusk light gives the environment a welcoming aspect, inopposition with the character. Independently of the the scene’s sketch, I worked on the main figure’s design, the hunter. On the first designs the clothes were more prepare and the hat wornhas adorned with the blue birds’ feathers, but I finally decided to give him a more sober and less smart aspect.

Main Painting and details:

Using pencil – The first step of the final image is the drawing. We keep the same composition that we have on the initial sketch, separating the image in to two parts, on one side the main figureand on the opposite side the forest clearing, where the last birds escape. During the drawingprocess, I made the definitive changes on the hunter’s design. For the forest we make the drawingof the principal lines of the trunks and we just insinuate the place where we will set the leavesmass, but it will be on the colour phase when we will detail the branches and vegetation.

Applying the paint:

The following process is the same that on my previous works, with some differences. We create twolayers over the pencil drawing. A normal layer that will be filled with white and a multiplying layer, where we will apply the colour. The white layer will be hidden while we are painting andits function will be to eliminate the line drawing as we are progressing on the colour work. For choosing the colours we will use the HSB Slider tools. It is very comfortable to work with thisand making changes of colour and shades is quick and easy.

It is time to front the colour layer. We start painting quickly all the scene, with colour stains, with no details, for getting a global vision of the scene’s tone. On this rough colouringwe can use Dry Media Brushes for creating some bas texture. We will use through the drawing normalbrushes mainly, and it is on the vegetation zone where we will create special brushes. On theinitial phase we will paint basically the trees main trunks and we will mark with colour stains theleaves masses. Once we have applied a good colour base we start adding shades and marking themwith more detail light and shadow zone; we will also create a more detailed vegetation and willpaint branches and little leaves. For this we will activate the brush size by pressure option.with no doubt, the more complicated part of the image is the vegetation, for the great amount of details and shades; that is the reason why we will go more deeply into this point.