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Making a Cartoon Character in Zbrush course
Rating: 4.9 out of 5(142 ratings)
1,078 students
Created byNIkolay Naydenov
Last updated 12/2021
English

What you'll learn

  • Making cartoon character from scratch in Zbrush
  • Tips and tricks of making a clean shape in Zbrush
  • Modelling a horse in Zbrush
  • Basics of rendering in Keyshot

Explore related topics

Course content

1 section • 49 lectures • 18h 43m total length

  • Intro and preparation8:54

    Learn to set up ZBrush for a cartoon character, loading a custom UI, organizing brushes and hotkeys, enabling lazy mouse, and optimizing workflow for efficient modeling and rendering.

  • Sculpting from concept - how to do it22:26

    Prepare a concept with a strong silhouette and clear personality. Gather references and anatomy, allocate one to two hours, then block the dragon head in zbrush with symmetry.

  • Sculpting a dragon head23:14
  • Making the horns and the teeth25:33

    Learn to sculpt horns and teeth in ZBrush using the curve to brush, masking, and move tools, then refine with inflate, symmetry, and subtool splitting for a cohesive dragon head.

  • Starting the body and the arms26:10
  • Working on the arms22:32

    Sculpt a cartoon arm by shaping a sharp elbow and defining triceps and biceps, using masking and brushes. Keep the underlying structure simple; embrace less is more for a silhouette.

  • Making the fingers23:01

    Learn to sculpt cartoon character fingers in ZBrush, tracing hand anatomy from the wrist to fingertips, shaping knuckles, palm, and tendons, and duplicating and refining fingers with dynamic resolution.

  • Making the legs23:01
  • Making the horse head21:23
  • Starting the horse body26:19
  • Making the horse legs and some adjustments32:08
  • Starting the tails22:49
  • Making the spiked ball and peptalk27:23
  • Starting the wings22:18
  • Wings and starting the helmet26:08
  • Combining the body and some refinement22:30
  • Doing some stuff and spikes on the back24:02

    Learn to convert a high-detail ZBrush concept into a manageable low-poly dragon form by duplicating meshes, projecting details, applying subdivision, and refining limbs and armor with masking.

  • Beautyfying the horse23:15
  • Making the horse cover21:51
  • Making some straps24:07
  • Starting the belt ant leg armors19:08

    Learn to shape dragon armor and a belt in zbrush by masking, extruding, and dynamic subdivision, using symmetry, mirroring, and crease controls for clean straps and plates.

  • Extracting the helmet parts21:19

    Extract and refine the helmet armor parts in Zbrush using the 3-D sketch tool, masking carefully, ensuring smooth thickness and alignment to the concept.

  • More extracting of helmet parts22:31

    Extract helmet parts and refine dragon armor in ZBrush, sculpting sharp curves, smooth transitions, and proper thickness using extrude and group tools for a cartoon character.

  • Finishing the helmet base22:07
  • Making the pike19:15
  • Detailing the horse hair21:17
  • Making the gloves and a bit of polypaint24:37
  • Helmet thicknes and fixes20:26
  • Helmet parts detailing23:30
  • Finishing the helm and some horn work25:11
  • Working on the wings and the horse24:24

    Refine the wings and horse in ZBrush by adjusting thickness, creases, and smoothing, while creating a low-poly base, projecting details, and using subdivision and rotation to improve realism.

  • Finishing the horse straps22:55

    Finish the straps in ZBrush by texturing, adjusting color with hue and blue tint, adding rivets, and refining thickness and topology for a KeyShot render.

  • Horse cloth is not that simple22:51

    Learn to refine a cartoon horse cloth in zbrush by adjusting thickness, borders, and creases through geometry and controlled subdivision.

  • Tight armor finishing23:03
  • Finishing touches on the horse20:23
  • Working on the tail, belt and other things18:16

    Build the tail armor with tile-like plates and masks, adjusting placement with move and smooth brushes. Refine the belt and gloves through extrusion, subdivision, and masking for cartoon character detail.

  • Detailing the gloves and lots of peptalk26:52

    Learn to sculpt and detail cartoon character gloves in ZBrush, mastering thickness, curves, wrinkles, and folds through extrusion, inflation, and subdivision workflows.

  • Finishing the pike and adding rivets25:49

    Place rivets on the pike in ZBrush using insert mesh spheres, control drag for size, and mask, inflate, and crease for dynamic subdivision details.

  • More polypainting and adjusting21:46
  • Fixing the wings, horse and something we forgot26:39
  • Detailing the head and eyes26:17

    Detail the head and eyes of a cartoon character in zbrush by sculpting, refining eye anatomy, shading with blue iris, and using masks, alpha brushes, and subdivision for expressive features.

  • Some final preparations before posing15:52

    Apply symmetry, inflate, and smoothing to refine the horse, use the alpha brush for sharp transitions, and consider grouping parts for different materials before posing.

  • Posing the horse and the dragon tail24:09

    Pose a cartoon horse and dragon tail in zbrush using masking and feathering, then refine with move and smooth brushes in non-symmetrical edits to match the concept.

  • Posing the arms25:54

    Pose a cartoon character's arms in ZBrush by turning the fingers into a fist, masking, inflating, and aligning the shoulder and forearm for a realistic pose.

  • Fixing and preparing the model for rendering31:04

    Refine the cartoon character in ZBrush by adjusting muscles and smoothing geometry across subdivisions. Prepare the model for rendering in KeyShot by cleaning topology and applying polish textures.

  • Starting with Keyshot23:00
  • Adjusting materials and lights in Keyshot22:26

    Apply metal and base cartoon materials to a dragon in KeyShot, set up environment and multiple lights, adjust roughness and shadows, and prepare camera and turntable renders.

  • Final adjustments and render settings in Keyshot27:15

    Apply final materials and textures to a cartoon character in Zbrush, then configure Keyshot render settings with turntable lighting, occlusion, and color adjustments for polished stills or animation.

  • Goodbye6:14

Requirements

  • Intermediate Zbrush knowledge required

Description

In this course we will do scary dragons!

And brave knights!

And also a ... horse.

So basically we will do this guy.

The concept is from Taran Fiddler

This is  Making a Cartoon Character in Zbrush course - Dragon knight edition.


My name is Niko, and i will be your host for around 50 exciting videos, full with trilling cartoon character sculpting in Zbrush, along with some tips and tricks. Expect also some peptalks and wise life advises and stories, here and there.


My experience and facination with cartoon characters goes long way since i was a little boy, drawing from comic books, and reaches up to this day. So now, my 15 years of experience in the game industry help me help you make the best characters you possible can :).


This course is mainly for intermediate Zbrush users, and if you are a complete beginner, you should look for my Absolute beginner Zbrush course or my other Zbrush, Blender, Substance painter course for beginners, and then get back to this one.


In this course we will start by loading my interface and hotkeys, i will explain why you will work 2 or 3 times faster with it, and at the end of the course if you don't like to work that fast, i will tell you how to revert back to default Zbrush UI.

Then i will talk about my process of thinking when i start working from concept a bit. After that we will do a dragon's head, which is not even in the concept, but it will definitely be fun.


Then we will went on to model the body and the arms, talking a bit about how real anatomy affects even the cartoon characters. We will make the legs and then we will concentrate a bit on the horse, by talking a bit about horse anatomy and the importance of references when we sculpt.

When we are ready with the overall shapes of the horse, we will do the horse and dragon tails, the spiked ball and the mighty dragon wings! We will do some of the horse clothes and straps too. Then it will be time to start the helmet of our dragon knight. It will be a process full of pain and difficult obstacles, but also with joy and new knowledge. When we are ready with the basics of the helmet we will do the pike and start detailing various things like the horse hair and doing some polypaint. We will also work few videos on the helmet to polish and finish it, because it is a pretty important part of our model after all.

We will then continue detailing the dragon rider by adding some fine details here and there to prepare it for posing.


After that we will pose the character using the latest Zbrush technologies of posing, that i use for about a decade now. When we are done with the posing and we are happy with how our character look, it will be time for the bonus section of our course - Keyshot. I will get you familiar with everything you need to know in this pretty easy program, capable of handling all the millions polygons and the polypaint, from Zbrush. We will make some materials, lights and finally i will show you how to make a render and a turntable video for your characters.

This course is for intermediate Zbrush users, but if you are a beginner, don't worry, go to thе "Absolute beginner Zbrush course" or my other "Zbrush, Blender, Substance painter course for beginners", and then get back to this one and you will be fine.


Since the dawn of time people were afraid of dragons and they were facinated by them. So after thousands of years all the stories and fables of dragons and knigts, are finally combined in to one character. It is up to you to explore how this character is modelled and rendered in Zbrush and Keyshot, and even do your own version! So lets dive in to it!


Who this course is for:

  • Intermediate Zbrush users

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