Creating Dragon Ball's Goku in Z Brush and Maya: Part 2

Creating Dragon Ball's Goku in Z Brush and Maya: Part 2

What You'll Be Creating

1. Sculpting Torso in Z Brush

Step 1

Continuing on from the last part of the tutorial series, I'll show you how to sculpt the torso of Goku. 

Open Z Brush. Insert a cube as the torso.

Step 2

Click on Dynamesh to fix the uneven topology. 

Hold Shift to smooth the edges of the cube. (Remember to press X before sculpting the mesh)

Step 3

By using Move brush (B-M-V), sculpt the cube into torso shape.

Step 4

Insert a sphere as the hip.

Step 5

Using Move brush (B-M-V) shape the hips and fit with the torso.

Step 6

Insert a cylinder as the arm.

Step 7

Click on Dynamesh and smooth the edges.

Step 8

Duplicate the arm’s mesh, mirror to the opposite side and merge together with the original arm.

Step 9

Press X for symmetry, use Move brush (B-M-V) to sculpt the arm’s muscle shapes roughly.

Step 10

Repeat the previous steps for legs also.

Step 11

Merge neck, torso, hips, arms and legs together.

Step 12

Click on Dynamesh to connect the topology.

Step 13

Smooth the seam line of the body by holding Shift.

Step 14

By using ClayBuildUp Brush (B-C-B), sculpt out the chest muscles. 

Use the DamStandard Brush (B-D-S) to emphasise the shapes. You don’t need to sculpt too much of details because you would sculpt again as normal map after re-topology in Maya. You only need the big shapes of body.

Step 15

Roughly sculpt out the abdomen muscle by using ClayBuildUp Brush (B-C-B). The lower part and the side of abdomen will be covered by clothes afterwards, so you don’t need to sculpt out the details.

Step 16

Sculpt for arms’ muscles as shown in the following image.

Step 17

For legs, I'll cover them with trousers afterwards, so we only need the big shapes and differentiate the thigh and calf.

Step 18

Insert a cube for hand palm as shown in the following image.

Step 19

Insert another five more cubes as the fingers.

Step 20

Back to palm’s subtool, click on Dynamesh and then smooth the edges.

Step 21

Hide the fingers’ cubes, use Move brush (B-M-V) to roughly sculpt out the palm shapes.

Step 22

Unhide the thumb sub tool. Click on Dynamesh to fix the uneven topology, then smooth the edges by holding Shift.

Step 23

Use Move (B-M-V) and Claybuildup (B-C-B) brushes to sculpt out the thumb shape.

Step 24

Repeat previous steps for the other fingers as well.

Step 25

Merge all the fingers and palm sub tools together, then click on Dynamesh to connect the topology. You may increase the resolution for higher poly count.

Step 26

Smooth the seam lines by holding Shift.

Step 27

Subdivide the mesh by pressing Ctrl-D. Use DamStandard Brush (B-D-S) brush and draw out the joint position of the fingers.

Step 28

Use Claybuildup Brush (B-C-B) to make the fingers’ joint more obvious, it would make the works easier when we re-topology in Maya.

Step 29

Duplicate the hand and mirror to the opposite side, then merge both hands.

Step 30

Export all the meshes as OBJ.

2. Re-Topology in Maya

Step 1

Open Maya. Import all the obj files that we exported just now.

Step 2

Select all the meshes, press Ctrl-G to group them all, then move the group onto the grid.

Step 3

Select the Persp Camera, change the Focal Length to 88. This focal length is the most similar with human eyes.

Step 4

Turn on Symmetry to World X.

Step 5

Select the head mesh and click on the magnet to make live.

Step 6

Go to Modeling Toolkit, select Quad Draw under Tools tab.

Step 7

Let’s start to re-topology the head. Click on the head surface to create the dots, press Shift and click to connect them into faces.

Step 8

You may hide the other meshes by pressing H or Ctrl-H. Create dots along the edges and press Shift to turn into faces.

Step 9

Don’t connect the upper lip and lower lip wire frame, leave a hole for the mouth.

Step 10

After finishing re-topology the head, select the ear mesh and make live. Select the re-topologised head mesh then select Quad Draw.

Step 11

Continue re-topology of the ears.

Step 12

After ear is done, select the body mesh and make live, select the re-topologised mesh and continue re-topology of the torso.

Step 13

For elbow and knee, create a topology as shown in the following image, which can help to maintain the shape when we do posing.

Step 14

Repeat the steps for hand re-topology as well.

Step 15

Select the mesh, go to Mesh Display > Soften Edge.

Step 16

Next, we will re-topology the hair, turn off the Symmetry, select one of the hair mesh > make live > Quad draw > re-topology.

Step 17

Re-topology the hair strands one by one.

Step 18

Select the body mesh, double click to select the edge loop of the mouth.

Step 19

Hold Shift and right mouse button and select Extrude Edges. Move the extruded faces inwards.

Step 20

Now you've completed the re-topology of the body and hair.

Conclusion

In the next part of the tutorial series, I'll show how to model the outfit and create the normal map for Goku.