My First 3D Digital Art Experience: a Rock

For my first time 3D modeling, I made a rock, which would be simple enough to make, yet complex enough for me to learn plenty about ZBrush.

However, I had no clue which rock I wanted to make, since I knew basically nothing about the variety of rocks that exist, so I decided to look up what stones were used for arrowheads. I chose to make obsidian over flint and chert because it seemed to be the simplest between them, and I wanted to make my first experience as easy as possible so I could focus more on learning to use ZBrush.

Once I found my references, I took a cube and changed one side into a triangle to make the back bend like the right reference. After that, it was just a matter of making indented lines and bumps across the entire model. The pinch and dam standard brushes were my best friends while making the details, especially since there was an alpha that was just 5-6 small lines that I could use with the dam standard brush for the many cut marks the went along about half the model. 

The process of learning ZBrush was much smoother than expected. There was only one problem that I had with making it. As soon as I applied a different material, there were a few areas that wouldn't change,  leaving it gray where it should have become a shiny black color. I tried as many ways as I could to fix it, but it seemed like it was detached from the rest of the rock where the material won't change with it, yet still attached in a way that I can alter it with the brushes. I had couldn't figure it out, nor did anyone else I asked help from, so I left it alone (trying to cover it up made it look worse). At least the color is still reasonable. 

Despite that short coming, I'm still proud of my rock (I never thought I would end up saying something like that). I believe I did a good job combining both of the reference images I found. I'm sure I'll be able to work on my next model faster now that I got the hang of this.