BA2 - Starting my Final Sculpt - zSpheres / Basic Proportions

Starting With zSpheres

I figured that the best way to start creating my gargoyle was to set up a number of zSpheres. This enabled me to easily start refining the base shapes and start with a form that looked rather anatomically correct. Not only this, but it also will save me a lot of time; which is incredibly precious throughout this and all university projects.

I also have pictured what my harpy will look like with the apple placed in her hand, this acted as a guide regarding her claw placement (which at this stage looks like fingers).

Problem No.1 I encountered within the final sculpt:

While modifying the shape of the talons using the move tool, I noticed how some of the faces became merged together. Even though her her claws are meant to be considered monster-like, if she were an animated character, there would be no way for her to pick anything up. As she's holding an apple, I need her both her talons to be clasped around it; but not to the point where they're joined. Even though the brief is tailored towards a non-animate sculpt, I still am bearing this in mind for future sculpts and issues I may face when creating them.

How I solved this issue:

1. Firstly I masked the area where the talons were connected, then inverted it.

2. After this, I clicked on 'Visibility' which was located within sidebar and pressed 'HidePt', this enabled me to hide that particular section.

3. To fully delete this masked area, I needed to go to 'Geometry' and then press 'Del Hidden', which fully deleted that area which was hidden.

4. In order for the outside of this section to be joined with adjacent polygons correctly, I clicked on 'Close Holes'. The affect of this can be seen within the last two images.

Problem No.2 I encountered within the final sculpt:

One problem I encountered while modifying my sculpt was using the move tool to adjust a specific section without it moving another area of my sculpt. To solve this problem, I masked the area I didn’t want to be moved, which allowed me to only move sections I wanted.

Problem No.3 I encountered within the final sculpt:

When moving certain areas of my sculpt while others were masked, the edges which spun around the masked section became deformed and jagged looking. To solve this I needed to smooth these parts.

Problem No.4 and 5 I encountered within the final sculpt:

The next problem I encountered was accidently missing areas I should’ve masked beforehand, which resulted in moving sections of the sculpt I didn’t want to. Because I would’ve lost some improvements if I just removed the mask, I decided it would be easier to handle the mistake. I kept holding “cntrl” to mask over the area I had missed, inverted it and then used the smooth tool to adjust the section.

A technique I experimented with while working on my final sculpt was creating clothes/armour using the deformation tools. Most notably inflate/gravity. I quite liked how it turned out, but this method didn’t turn out to be very practical as I really needed it to be on another subtool.

This base clothing was the result of using the extract tool, located in the right sidebar. I loved that it created the clothing as a separate subtool, which makes it easier to edit areas than deformation.

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