Learn how to sculpt from concept art

Arik Newman shares his complete process for recreating a complex character in Zbrush

Arik Newman shares his complete process for recreating a complex character in Zbrush

t his enjoyable project first came to life when I was searching on the internet for inspiration for my next project. While I was exploring Deviantart I came across the profile of Justin Rodrigues, who works as a character designer and visual developer. I was instantly blown away by his amazing art and knew I had found my inspiration.

The crocodile pirate certainly looks very cool. It also has a great backstory, as well as a terrific pose, so I decided to take it on as my next personal project. I thought it would provide me with a great opportunity to sharpen my skills in sculpting from concept art, using just a single image. It would also give me the chance to work on texturing, shading, lighting and compositing. However, above all, it would help me learn how to produce beautiful images to display in galleries.

Zbrush really is the best tool for artists today, while Keyshot is built to work with Zbrush and has an amazing Bridge plug-in that saves time. I like the simplicity of how I can build shaders quickly, add lighting and HDRIS, and update my model as I wish.

The process was difficult to complete; the pose is very dynamic compared to a T pose. The crocodile has a huge torso and I needed to make a lot of adjustments and use references for the areas I couldn’t see.

I was really pleased with the end result and I think I will continue to use this process, and software, in future.

The pose of the crocodile pirate was the trickiest part for Arik to master

Arik newman Arik is a freelance 3D artist who has worked in the industry for 10 years. His focus is on character and creature design. www.bit.ly/ ariknewman Author