HOW can I sculpt Hair In Zbrush?
Kim Lee, US
To illustrate this, I’ll be sculpting a cartoon version of Gandalf from the Lord of the Rings books. This particular model is based on a sketch by Alberto Camara. Check him out online, his work is awesome.
Fifty percent of this model is hair, and when it comes to sculpting hair, there are many ways to go about it. First, I split each section into subtools. The hair is extracted from the head, I use the Move tool to get it into position and then Dynamesh. Once I am happy with the shape, I use Zremesher for nice even topology.
The tash is created using the Curvetube brush. Going into the Stroke menu, I am able to adjust the size, using the Curve Modifier to get it tapered.
The beard was another appended Zsphere. Because I want cuts at the bottom, I don’t want too much depth. Once I have the shape I want, I retopologize just the front part of it with the Zsphere tool and then use the Zmodeler brush to Qmesh some depth into it.
The brows are the Curvetube brush again, layered on top of one another. I use the Snakehook brush to pull out the pointy ends on the brows and the tash.
For the actual sculpting, I divide the mesh into sections with the Dam_standard brush then use the Claybuildup brush with Lazymouse turned on to give me some smooth, even strokes. It’s important to have Backface Masking turned on when sculpting on a thin mesh so as not to pull the faces on the other side. Because this is a cartoon style, I don’t want excessive details in the sculpt, so I run a Clay Polish on it, unmask and then go over it again with the Standard brush in a few areas to bring out some subtle details and catch the light.
For more realistic hair, I would use the Standard brush with an alpha and go over the model to really bring out the details. This requires a lot of patience and coffee! But in my case, I apply simple colours and my model is done.