France
KoreaArtist’s Series: Sculpting Braids
By Ryan Kingslien in Artist's Series, sculpting | 19 comments
One interesting thing about being an artist is that you get to ask people strange questions and have a fairly legitimate reason for it. For example, “Would you hold still while I stare at you for, oh, I don’t know, say, 5 days?” If you weren’t an artist, that question would have an entirely different meaning, right?
Now, it doesn’t always work out. You might have gone up to a woman and said, “You are incredibly beautiful. Would you mind holding still while I stare at you for, oh, I don’t know, say, 5 days?” She might even have feigned interest before going into the back room and leaving you to gracefully exit the room as the sirens get louder and louder.
It’s happened. But we’re artists! We’re prepared to be outsiders and, if need be, make a graceful exit just before the norms of society come crashing into the room.
So the other day, I went around to some of the girls in the office and asked them how to braid hair. You might gather from a picture Meats took of me at a recent user group meeting where we hosted the Pirates of the Caribbean vfx crew that I could use a good braiding but that is not the case. My hair isn’t long and the wig already had its own braids.
The girls in the office, though, were very helpful. They said, you have 3 groups of hair then take the outside group and move it to the middle, then repeat with the other side. Always moving the outside strand to the middle.
Then I began looking for an incredibly simple to follow formula to conceptualize what I was being told. So I spent some time looking and drawing braids. I used ZSpheres to recreate braids. I used SubTools and Transpose and ultimately nothing helped me as much as breaking out my pen and paper and doing a 2D drawing of a braid.
What I noticed immediately is that there is a distinct zigzag down the middle of the braid.
Also, the width of the zigzag is the exact width of one group of hair. Sculpting a braid was now as easy as drawing that zigzag down the center of a column and going from there.
Check out the process below:
Click the image to play the movie
Click here to download the movie
Hair is not a static element, though. We need to break it up to give it a more natural look. To do that we will use Transpose and the Magnify brush.
Click the image to play the movie
Click here to download the movie
Click here for the next installment of the Sculpting Braids article.
Happy ZBrushing.
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anibalin | Nov 29, 2007 | Reply
thanks, very enjoyable. This blog its my daily stop
keep it up.
MAN9A | Nov 29, 2007 | Reply
Nice Tut, and great Blog!!
Feed added to my favourites!!
Yongkiatk | Nov 29, 2007 | Reply
Great Tutorial! Keep’em coming!
Bryan Silva | Nov 29, 2007 | Reply
Nice tutorial. I enjoyed it. Gotta make use of that wrap mode!
hyper1 | Nov 29, 2007 | Reply
Hey Ryan,
Thanks a bunch! You can work with ZBrush all day long and then somebody comes along with a brand new approach and poof pre-conceptions go bye-bye. The only thing I wasn’t real clear on was the second video where you used the scale and masking at (appearently) at the same time. I would have done the masking, then the blurring, and finally the scaling. hmmm..
Gary
Moris7 | Nov 29, 2007 | Reply
wow man, i love what you’re doing here!
Thanks alot for all the tips you’re giving us!
Really appreciated!
admin | Nov 29, 2007 | Reply
hyper1 - I’m pretty sure it was done as you described. Mask it, blur it, scale it. Thats the only way.
Revanto | Nov 29, 2007 | Reply
I wrote a tutorial a long time ago on how to model braids in 3d.
http://www.mixmash.com.au/Tutorials.htm
Yes, I was the first to do it and then other people came and stole my thunder (I’m looking at you, Proton).
Anyway, the tutorial is for Lightwave but the theory is the same.
Enjoy!
tdrs | Nov 29, 2007 | Reply
ryankingslien,
Those are super tutorials!!!
These teaching is very helpful for users! Thank you. In addition, I would like to ask a question.Please look at the following link. You should think of how to make this Skin effects, usually, if I use drag alpha to the model,I find that deal with the texture falloff area is more difficult ——Texture overlap or texture attenuation, it is easy to see the Artificial effect, I would like to listen to your recommendations, sorry my poor English.
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/at…achmentid=54535
admin | Nov 29, 2007 | Reply
tdrs - the link to the attachement doesn’t come through. can you repost it?
slashpot | Nov 30, 2007 | Reply
Great stuff Ryan! Thanks for these, this will be a very well known blog before long, you should put some ads on it and make some dosh I’m doing a horse right now, think I’ll try this on his tail, thanx again mate!
tdrs | Nov 30, 2007 | Reply
sorry,I have correctted the link
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/attachment.php?attachmentid=54535
drriquet | Nov 30, 2007 | Reply
bonjours rayan, tu fais un super boulot, se serait bien si tu pouvait faire plus de tutos, car ils sont vraiment excellents, c’est un vrai plaisir a regarder, je suis francais et je comprend tout !! encore une fois great great great job, thanks a lot. and more and more tuts !!!
admin | Dec 1, 2007 | Reply
tdrs - i would check out this thread: http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=54099&page=7&pp=15
Jim explains some of his working process for his dragon scales.
Thanks for the kind words folks.
austin martin | Dec 14, 2007 | Reply
Great Work Bryan……
austin martin | Dec 14, 2007 | Reply
Sorry RYAN
Victor Tella | Jan 4, 2008 | Reply
Hi Ryan
Awesome tutorials Just what I was looking for. I braid for a living … Whips specifically so I might be able to modify this to make more complicated patterns using more strands like say 16 I’ll have to play with it and see.
If you ever need anymore info on braiding let me know I’ll be glad to help you out.
All the best
Victor
jessica | Mar 6, 2008 | Reply
hey. I just want to thank you for the great site you’ve published. I’ve been sitting with an art project for six days and still I have not figured how to draw a braid. (of course I’ve colour-coded and everything) I’m only really a starter in arts but thanks again, I really found your post a great help!! Enjoy the week.
jess.
Meg | Mar 16, 2008 | Reply
Perfect! I’m an ESL teacher, and I’m going to show this to my students to illustrate “braid”! Thanks!