All ridiculously protracted ZBrush projects must come to and end and for my Cthulhu sculpture that time is now. Last weekend I finished the adventure by posing the beast in ZBrush and compositing it into an angry seascape in Photoshop. The finished product is shown below - click for cataclysmic levels of image detail or merely a slightly larger image if you have a tiny monitor.
 |
| That's not the ocean calling, it's Cthulhu, and he is pissed |
For an equally epic turntable I used a bit of Maya digital ocean magic, a bit of After Effects titling, shocking levels of high definition, and some crazy-ass-end-of-the-world music to push it over the top.
Astute viewers will note the turntable includes a loin cloth for Cthulhu - this spares everyone from the horror of Cthul-ass in HD! Inquiring minds may wonder where a world-destroying old god may acquire such a garment - I'm thinking he skinned a giant world-destroying seal and fashioned the pelt into a makeshift diaper - makes sense to me?Ok, for a recap of the all the phases of this sculpture checkout my prior three installments:
- Me and Cthulhu - Part 1covers the inspiration for this model and showcases my concept drawings
- Me and Cthulhu - Part 2 covers first phases of tentacle creation and has a sample Merman turntable I used as a study for the Cthulhu head
- Me and Cthulhu - Part 3 covers the progression of sculpting and texturing the model along with a flat shaded turntable of the completed model
I'm pretty pleased with how this sculpture turned out - the pose and composition are almost exactly what I had in mind when I created my initial sketch - only with a bit more detail as the beast is walking out of the ocean rather than submerged up to its shoulders.
 |
| Brother from another mother? |
The final render on this was helped greatly by this tutorial http://eat3d.com/free/zbrush_sss , I highly recommend it to anyone interested in render passes and subsurface scattering in ZBrush and compositing those passes in Photoshop.Now that I see the final composition I can't help but think what a wicked piece of van art it would make:
 |
| Dude, boss Cthulhu mural on your mini-van maaaan |
That's it for now, my deep dive into ZBrush is officially complete and now it is time to press on to new and exciting projects - or maybe play Assassin's Creed 3 for a while - hard to say....