What is this course?
The focus of this course is the creation of Clothes in ZBrush for a fantasy character. Throughout the video lessons, I’ll share with you: workflows, a bit of theory, sculpting techniques and more than a few modelling tips and tricks to create folds, wrinkles, drapery and in general, to help you understand the behaviour of different fabrics so that you can confidently sculpt clothes for your own characters.
For all skill level
Although this is a fast-paced course, every tool and step of the process is thoroughly explained as you progress in the video lessons. Having said that, it is assumed that you have a basic understanding of the essentials in ZBrush like UI and navigation, as well as knowing some terminology such as ‘Subdivision levels’, ‘Polygon normals’, ‘UV maps’, etc. This course was designed for intermediate to advanced users. However, if you are a beginner with ZBrush and want to give this course a go, there is nothing that would really stop you from completing it.
Why this course?
What's in the course?
The course is packed with 3.5 hours of content spread across 25 videos and it has a simple 4-part structure: Theory, blocking, sculpting and detailing of the clothes. There are also exercise files with every step of the process as a separate ZTool.
What's covered?
The creature's base mesh is provided in the resources so that you can start working on the clothing straight away. Since the focus of the course is on the fabrics, this allows you to concentrate only on the relevant process for the creation of clothes.
What's the goal?
By the end of this course, you'll have a good understanding of the behaviour of clothes and types of folds, how to produce base meshes for clothes and multiple ways to address the modelling, sculpting and detailing of fabrics.
Things to keep in mind
This course was created with ZBrush 2018.1 and although the focus is on the techniques and workflows, there are certain features and tools that are particular to ZBrush 2018. If you do not have ZBrush 2018.1 or higher you might not be able to load the resources or the exercise files.
IMPORTANT: This course is focused on sculpting techniques in ZBrush for the creation of cloth but it does not cover the Dynamics palette added in the ZBrush 2021 version
Full outline of the course
Video 01 – Intro: A brief introduction to the course and the expected outcome.
Video 02 – Exercise Files: A short explanation of how the exercise files work and an overview on loading brushes and Ztools
Video 03 – Essential Concepts: Introduction to important concepts like Gravity, tension points, Material properties and more.
Video 04 – Types of Folds: In this video, we’ll discuss the types of folds, we’ll categorise them and learn how to identify them.
Video 05 – Workflow & Thinking Approach: This is an overview of the methodology we’ll use in the practical part of the course.
Video 06 – Lower Body Blocking: In this video, we’ll start by setting up the base of the clothes for the lower part of the body.
Video 07 – Upper Body Blocking: Continuing with the blocking stage, in this video, we’ll set up the shapes for the upper body.
Video 08 – Refining Shapes: Using a limited but powerful set of tools we’ll spend some time refining the base mesh.
Video 09 – Marking the Tension Points & Drapery: In this video, we’ll explore a simple method to help us place the different folds.
Video 10 – Sculpting The Poncho: At this point, we’ll begin the sculpting process and learn a few tricks to create the main folds.
Video 11 – Sculpting The Cape: With the cape, we’ll introduce a custom brush and how to use it to create drapery.
Video 12 – Sculpting The Gown: The focus of this video will be a simple but effective technique to add damage to the cloth.
Video 13 – Sculpting Leather Plates: Here we take a small break from making folds and we’ll learn a neat trick to add details.
Video 14 – Sculpting Baggy Pants: In this video, we’ll put the theory to the test and add folds to the ‘baggy’ pants of the character.
Video 15 – Sculpting The arms bands: In this video, we’ll concentrate on the tubes around the arm and compression folds.
Video 16 – Sculpting Leg Wraps & Scarf: The focus of this video is a technique to produce the scarf as well as detailing the wraps.
Video 17 – Sculpting Bulky Scarf: the last step of the sculpting process is to set up the bulky scarf and add the folds.
Video 18 – Detailing The Poncho: In this video, we’ll introduce the workflow for detailing clothes and we’ll create our first brush.
Video 19 – Detailing The Cape: With this video, we’ll learn about another crucial technique to add intricate details to clothes.
Video 20 – Detailing The Gown: While detailing these pieces, we’ll work with yet another detailing technique with more control.
Video 21 – Detailing Leather Plates: In this video, we’ll concentrate on another important element of clothes, the stitches.
Video 22 – Detailing Baggy Pants: We’ll use this piece to reinforce and integrate some of the techniques previously discussed.
Video 23 – Detailing The arms bands: In this video, we’ll take advantage of another powerful feature in ZBrush to add details.
Video 24 – Detailing Bulky Scarf: In this video, we’ll do a recap of some techniques and introduce one more trick for details.
Video 25 – Course wrap-up: This video will walk you through the last steps of completing the sculpting of the character.
Video 26 – Bonus Material: A time-lapse of the entire process of the armature, body, hands, mask and horns of the character
