Colin the troll

Troll Colin | 3D Concept Breakdown

Project Overview

As a third-year student wanting to specialize in creatures, I decided to take the concept direction. This bust was created to practice anatomy and sculpting on Zbrush.

The aim is to try out different workflows, such as in this case material composition, photobashing and mattpainting, procedures that were previously unfamiliar to me.

Software used :  Zbrush / Photoshop

Reference research

Seeking to give more personality with a more defined character and explore a more imposing body mass to deepen knowledge of anatomy, the option of designing a troll proved pertinent. What's more, the inspiration of the moment seemed to fit perfectly with this choice.

Zbrush sculpting

Blocking required a time investment in research, particularly for references aimed at understanding the facial folds and fine lines that the presence of fat can naturally engender. The aim of a concept is not to have a Game-Ready topology, the Zremesher was carried out until a topology of around 20,000 points was achieved. Then the bust was subdivided down to 2 million polygons, which was enough to create details.

Polypaint

Color zoning was used on this figure, as this practice is used in various fields of graphic design and painting. It organizes and divides the surface into distinct zones and reinforces the overall skin tone.

Following the application of these three colors with the Polypaint brush, a color palette tending towards brown tones was selected. To accentuate the skin's realism, areas such as the chin, nose and eye contour were deliberately darkened and adjusted using a violet tint.

The skin was then painted with green tones, from the shoulder area downwards, on the assumption that a rougher texture would be one of its characteristics.

Material composition

Several material renderings were performed in Zbrush and imported into Photoshop. Each layer was modified using hue and saturation adjustments, curves, filters or masks, and blending modes.

In order to avoid overloading the image and potentially altering its quality, adjustments deemed non-essential were set aside. Preference was given to the manual application of modifications.

Photobash & mattpainting

These procedures helped enrich the skin details. Three textures were applied using different blending modes by changing their saturation, then masked and painted manually.

Intermediate renderings resulted in slight modifications, including a reflection in the left eye, an unclogging of shadows on the right side of the head and more vignetting.

Marmoset additional render

The aim of using this software was to make renderings that wouldn't be calibrated in Photoshop and to push my knowledge further. A cinematic rendering, which I had never attempted before, was done.

Cinematic

The incorporation of a hand-created map into the roughness considerably enhanced the appearance of the character's skin, with areas featuring increased roughness and others brighter, offering greater diversity. This approach has helped reinforce the visual credibility of the troll's skin texture. 

Clay

In order to optimize working time, the file was saved under the name "rendering clay". With the three basic lights already positioned, there was no need to repeat the process. A new material was created and a color as close as possible to a clay shade was created. The lights were recalibrated to match this lighter shade. Lights specially added for cinematic rendering were deactivated.

Conclusion

It was interesting to see how different renderings of the same sculpted model can be, influenced by the software used and the methodology adopted. The choice between the PBR approach in Zbrush followed by compositing in Photoshop and the use of Marmoset Toolbag depends not only on artistic preferences and project requirements, but can also be heavily influenced by time management considerations.

The first approach offers in-depth creative control but requires manual adjustments to achieve optimum rendering. Whereas the second option offers real-time rendering with interactive environment features. In the future, the choice between these two methods will depend on the time needed to complete the project, the level of detail required and the type of rendering desired. The first method is more geared towards display and advertising, and aims for a more attractive rendering, while the second is closer to the rendering possible in a video game environment.

The difficulties I encountered were in calibrating Marmoset, a software program I hadn't used for a few months, so I had to review and try to understand various parameters that enabled me to get a better grasp of the desired rendering purpose.

By working on anatomical details, I was able to better understand the structure of the face and give more personality to the eyes.