France
KoreaTales from the Crypt: Shikuri Uraji
By Ryan Kingslien in Lessons from the Crypt | 3 comments
For those of us who have been at ZBrushCentral for a while the following lines always mean that something cool is coming up next:
Hello everyone.
I am Shikuri. I am sharing ZBrush with Pigma.
I have been a fan of Shikuri’s work since joining Pixologic. Her work is always innovative, always presents an interesting perspective and her style avoids western painting’s focus on one point perspective and instead focuses on the arrangement of objects in a 2D picture plane. One of my favorite works of hers is here.
Her Scared Silly image is of Ikkyu and the Hell prostitute and for this image she used ZBrush 2! Much of what she does translate very well to ZBrush 3, however, what I find most useful in Shikuri’s work is the ways in which she thinks about the tools and arranges her image on the canvas.
Creating the Elements
Starting with a sketch Shikuri began to work on the individual assets for the final image. First, is the head of Ikkyu. This model comes from a very simple polygon shape and one of the things I really enjoy about this sculpt is how the polygons are used for the hair. Also the looseness of the sculpt is very nice. The texture nicely compliments the sculpt and together they really work.
Click here for a higher rez image of the head.
ZSpheres were used for many of the other elements. The skeleton was created using ZSpheres as well as the gremlins.
Arranging Everything on the Canvas
Once all the elements were sculpted they were arranged in the canvas and then “dropped” to convert them into Pixols. As Pixols they retain half of their former 3D life to become 2.5D. This way they can be lit and rendered as 3D objects from one point of view.
Pixols also retain material information so each model’s material can continue to be modified even though its been dropped into Pixols and can not be rotated.
Click here to learn more about Pixols.
Render Passes
Shikuri shows us 3 different render passes that she made in ZBrush. One default render, one render to emphasis shadows and one render to emphasis the light on Ikkyu and the Hell Prostitute.
These are then composited inside of Photoshop to adjust the color, lighting and blend between the different render passes.
I always enjoy Shikuri’s work and this is no exception.
email this | tag this | digg this | trackback | comment RSS feed
spaceboy412 | Dec 17, 2007 | Reply
Skikuri is THE reason i got into zbrush, her work really showed me what it could do and i absolutely love every image she’s donek, not to mention her innovation when it comes to scales and feathers. You forgot to mention she made the whole image for the contest in 3 days!
Polygonman | Dec 23, 2007 | Reply
Wow! I didn’t even realize art of this quality was possible to do completely in Zbrush. Tons of respect for the artist and a whole new respect for Zbrush.
kevin Phillips | Dec 24, 2007 | Reply
She is indeed amazing: An utterly unique vision, well-evinced by her completely 2D work in Photoshop and Painter, as seen on her site.
She’s one of those talents who would shine if she were painting with a broken twig. But to see how she has incorporated ZBrush into her style IS eye-opening.