My CG Society ZBrush course wrapped last week, and while I've been pretty diligent about watching the instructors videos I've seriously slacked off on the course homework. But lest the reader think I was sitting around lazing, I assure you I was doing highly productive things like watching NFL preseason games, walking a very energetic greyhound and most importantly re-beating the Xbox 360 titles Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City. That's right, all highly time consuming yet critical work.
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| Strickland isn't buying it, still thinks I'm a slacker... McFly? |
To briefly pontificate on the course now that it is done: I think the information and techniques presented definitely make it worth the money. The technical benefit would have been much higher for someone with less ZBrush knowledge. Since I had already taken large steps in learning ZBrush, the real benefit of the course for me was gaining insight into an industry professional's creative process. His use of multiple quick models, altering models via photoshop to quickly come up with variations, and even kit-bashing model pieces together just to spark creative alternatives was really eye-opening. Also, his background in traditional sculpting allowed for really interesting tips regarding sculpture forms, planes, and altering one's perspective to push the model forward. All of these techniques I'm sure I'll employ for a long time to come. So why the slacking? The course was a full eight weeks and each week had a substantial (from my slow ZBrush-ing standpoint) amount of work aside from merely watching the two to three hours of lecture videos. This is a great wealth of information and sculpting practice, but unfortunately paying work and home improvement duties (and gaming?) have a tendency to pile up when you've differed them for weeks on end! The good news is the course materials are available to students forever - or as long as CG Society's website is up.Anyway, that's the end of my course review, now what up wit dat freaking chupacabra, yo? Alas, the aforementioned slacking has prevented much progress, but I do have a few speed sculpts I started based on my sketches and reference sheet discussed here :
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| Some kind of emaciated were-bear-dog-man? |
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| Were-bear-dog-man made more crouchy and clawy - random horn because unicorns still cool? |
Unsure if I'm going to keep going on this project or shelf it and move onto something different, this kind of feels like an end of summer project and I'm more in a fall mood. Also, I recently picked up Scott Spencer's ZBrush Digital Sculpting Human Anatomy book (yes, print books still exist) and I'm looking forward to making some progress in that coursework. I guess time will tell, stay tuned...