CREATURES AND OBSCRUITITES
CRAB: FINAL RENDER
REFERENCE AND CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT
The first creature I finished was a continuation of a sculpt I had started whenever I first picked up Z-Brush. From different design podcasts and lectures, I wanted to just through together a couple of animals and see how it turned out. It was more of an exorcise to get involved with Z-Brush, and as my first ever finished project, I felt that it turned out well. However, I was too lenient with myself, and I found that involving myself in the process led to using it as a source of procrastination. Realistically, I could have finished it in half the time. Here is my moodboard for the project:
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CRAB: PROCESS AND DEVELOPMENT
On reflection when writing this, I can clearly see where I went wrong with this sculpt: focusing on details instead of getting the foundations correct. I jumped headfirst in from developing the body and face, leaving the arms and legs as somewhat of an after thought. I defiantly need to keep this in mind for future concepts and creatures.
CRAB: RETOPO AND UV
This part of the process was challenging and took a lot of time. The majority of the work went into the face. I think it turned out well, but if I were to do something like this again then the legs would need to be altered.
UV
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CRAB: TEXTURES AND DISPLACEMENT
Because there was so much time spent on the sculpting, I rushed the texturing very much. I also went into it without knowledge of UDIMs. I intend to look into other texturing software such as Mari for a more realistic feel. I felt that my efforts in substance painter come across kind of cartoonish and somewhat flattens the creature quite a bit.
Displacements and Normals from Z-Brush
SUBSTANCE PAINTER
The first thing I did was to mask off each of the different parts of the crab. In hindsight, It would have been more precise and cleaner to use colour maps but it was quite hard to do with a high poly sculpt. From then, i went around building up layers with smart materials and different colours to create the result.
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Although it is my favourite sculpt to date, I realise that there was a lot I could have done with this. I intend to revisit it down the line for slight adjustments in textures, and for a rig.
FISH LIPS
In between sculpting the crab, I wanted to try and practice some anatomy with some stylisation. Although it was fun to work with, this sculpt came out a bit too strange, but still good practice.
