Looking to improve the fidelity of my sculpts I took real world reference photos of my friend and sculpted their face in Zbrush.
For this project, I learned to use Zwrap to project XYZ texture scans to my sculpted mesh. I created displacement, normal and diffuse maps using Xnormals and set up a shader network for Arnold renderer.
This network allowed me to control the strength of the displacement/normal strength based on ID and utility maps that were provided by XYZ textures and touched up manually in photoshop.
This exercise was transformative as it forced me analyze real world anatomy and interpret key characteristics of of the human face that make each person unique.
I experimented with Xgen to groom the portrait. Using guides and modifiers I’m improving on shaping the primary, secondary and tertiary shapes.
Using my shader network I was able to dial in the displacement/specular and subsurface strength. I also used AI standard hair to modify the look of my groom.
Using references from celebrities and sculpts from other artists to helped me understand the complexities of the face.
I plan to continue to refine this process and use a similar method to model out a full character.
