MAKING An ARMOURED MECH

01 CREATE A CONCEPT SCULPT

I usually don’t take too long – maybe a few hours – to come up with the 3D translation, especially when working from either my own art or from another artist’s initial concept. The main focus here is to create a solid base sculpt to pull data from so that the faces can be reconstructed with Group Loops and Panel Loops. The data created in this process is the most important data, which is precisely why I ensure I spend a fair amount of time sculpting the base of the character.

02 MAKE SELECTIONS

After the base sculpt is completed and an inventory is taken, the next step is to organise the data into selections (or polygroups). For the first part of the hard surface workflow, I have to make it easy for myself to stay organised by grouping out all of the parts that I want to make into separate pieces. The key is to work large and shrink to the details. I do this by copying the mesh, masking out selections, group splitting them into separate subtools and then finally deleting the hidden parts of the mesh.

03 WORK ON THE MESHES

I select polygons and Polygroup them, and then I isolate that selection and delete the hidden polygons. Then I’ll group the loop. Zremesh this selection in steps: try to get the mesh as low as possible while retaining the initial shape; somewhere in the region of 100 to 200 polygons. Be sure to set your panel loops with three levels so that the parts match up, set your maximum angle tolerance to 30 and group by normals to give you separate groups to play with. Subdivide and poly by features.

04 GET KITBASH IMM BRUSH SETS AND ALPHAS

I love using alphas to create detail. There are plenty of alpha references online and in the Zbrush community floating around, but I think the best thing is to create your own alphas that are unique and one of a kind. IMM Kitbash sets are handy tools to have in your arsenal to help create finer detail, and they help take your sculpt to a very high level of detail and refinement. I have my own set that I have made to aid in this process, as well as a ton of purchased sets from other artists.