Gargoyle quick sketch

[linkc007]

Hello guys! I finished the complete Blender course last year and now I’m gonna dedicate some time to show you some quick sketches and some really cool models I’ll be doing; all of them made after hours and hours of practice and evolution.

I’ll begin simple with this gargoyle sketch. If you like it, I may post more complex models like a Transformers head (a draft, in this case) I did for reference in a 3d printing of a crow and some similar stuff for 3d printing.

draft

WIP (work in progress)

I’ll update this post on the go. I really hope begginers may get inspired through these photos

update 1:

I’ll number these WIP (work in progress) photos and comment each one so that people may know what I did and try it in their own projects.

click on the image to enlarge

Step # 1 - I added another cubic metaball (cube shape) bellow it to represent the skirt/dressing of the angel and then I converted those metaballs to mesh (Object > Convert to > Mesh From Curve/Meta/Surf/Text), keeping the originals and moving it to a new collection (shortcut “M” key). So I mirrored the generated mesh and remeshed it; also I snapped the cursor to selected (Shift + S) and applied all transforms (Ctrl +A); then I selected the object and hit Object > Set Origin > to 3D Cursor.

Step # 2 - I put this photo above (and also this one below) to explain how I carved the mesh for the wings, in that separated object, but it is better explained in image below. I masked the area of the egg-like object then I extracted the mesh as you can see in the image (With MASK BRUSH selected and the mask already drawn, click in Mask > Mask Extract).

https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1CUFKrIVMZ5KhFcG3I6inRMFld4VuRavE

As masking is something very important in sculpting workflow, you should test its shortcuts and read documentation > here <, in Blender docum. site.

Step # 3 - Then I went to modifiers tab in extracted mesh and applied it. I then put the extracted mesh in Edit Mode and selected one face of the outer/upper part; then I selected similar or co-planar ones (with at least one face selected, go in the menu Select > Select Similar > Co-planar); if it gets messy and select more than intended, clean it unsellecting undesired faces.
Then hit P to seParate it from the mesh (Or go into Mesh > Separate > Selection). Then click outside and, in Obj. Mode click on the new object. Hit Edit Mode and scale it to the Y (or X, according to the orientation you choose) by 0 (zero), to make it plannar. Then extrude it and voilà! You have a carving object to boolean the Egg-shaped object for the wings.

Step # 4 - *Isolate the angel using Shift +H to hide everything but your model. You can reverse this with Alt+H to unhide.

Put the document in front view (shortcut “1”) and on the Tools tab, select the annotation pencil and draw some strokes to mark the approx. shape you wanna reach.
You can change its color/hide it/and add more traces in the “N” shortcut tab (View > Annotations). {You can also change the placement of it in the Properties Panel’ Screwdriver and Wrench menu tab}

Step # 5 - Draw some strokes to mark in the sideview too (shortcut “3”).

Step # 6 - Then CLICK BACK IN THE SPACE BOX SELECTION (first item in the tools panel) to exit annotations mode. Go into sculpt mode and start to push and pull with Grab brush or (even better, sometimes) with Snake Hook brush, because Snake Hook brush generates geometry on every stroke, so that it avoids stretching.

Step # 7 - By the way, if it gets too stretchy you can always remesh it in Obj. Mode and then apply transforms and come back to sculpt mode. While doing the arms, I used the Mask Expand Along Surface masking utility to mask everything except the arms (Shortcut: Shift + A, sliding the mouse along the arms). Then I used the mask brush with Ctrl pressed (to unmask) and cleaned the shoulders a little bit. Then and only then I continued stretching some muscles. You can use other brushes too. Dont be very perfectionist in this early stage of modelling.

Step # 8 - Go into object mode and unhide/reveal (Alt + H) things to get an overall look of the model and model the wings too if you like. I changes the sizing of the wings so that the angel looked bigger than before.

If you’ve got questions, let them below. I’m open to suggestions and also corrections. I’ll end this with one or more updates.

[FedPete]

Great! Show your progress.
You committed now

[linkc007]

update 2 :

My idea was to put a jewell (?) in front of the gargoyle and, while I was looking to the draw I sketched for reference, I had the idea of doing a kind of fold in the below area of the wings… So, I worked it out with some Grab Brush Stitching, Remeshing, carving some mesh with Clay Build up to define shape, then a little Smoothing and Remeshing again, and then marking the sharp edges with Crease brush, and always remeshing.

I remeshed in 6 samples, Smooth mode, with size 0.99 (it is adjusted at the Remesh modifier itself).

Edit: As the mesh got some holes given I used only 6 samples, I made some booleans and remeshings to fix that using cylinders

[linkc007]

update 3 (penultimate):

I sculpted manually both sides of the wings, making it look very similar, but I could’ve done it perfectly symmetrical if I had preferred so with: in Vertex Mode, select all of the vertices and then click in Mesh > Symmetrize and then choose the axis you wanna symmetryze it from in the menu that gonna appear.
(Vertex Mode usually offer better results, I think, but you can try it in Face and Edge modes too).

I also made an alternative shape following some other inspiration from the sketches. As my sketch is very rough and not detailed, I think it gives us some liberty to go and try different shapes, experimenting a little bit, seeing where the shapes are going to bring us to.

Then I added a ico sphere and symmetrized it, streching some vertices in order to form a gem-like dark ruby stone. We can later on texture it with > this tutorial of Nodes for gems <

Now I’m working on the angel. The mesh had a lot of duplicated vertices, which I erased with Alt + M > By Distance.

Next update I’ll show final result…! As I’ll write less, feel free to lighten any question in the comments

[linkc007]

update 4 (final)

Guys, after a week long posts we are here to see how final results are like for our angel-like gargoyle. I will beforehand thank you all that interacted and reacted to this post. you kept me motivated along the process
let’s get started

Click in the img to enlarge it

Well, Since the overall shape of the wings were already 90% ready, I just worked out on some final stretching with both Grab and Snake Hook brushes, as well as Scrape, Fill, Build Clay Up and Smooth brushes sometimes. I had to use Dyntopo sculpt mode, sometimes and also Remesh modifier.

Then, the first 3 images above show how I worked mainly on the arms and head of the angel guy, adding shape and some creases to it, and some suavity in the chest as well. The face turned out to be more Hawk-like than I expected, but I liked the result (and also I could have made it sharper, so that it appeared more in render but… as I said in the beginning, I wanted to maintain it simple).

I did a test render (left img below) and the last image shows how I reshaped the wings better.

Then I did this test render with 256 samples in Cycles. I tested some other materials too but I liked most these ones; they were more like what I had firstly imagined. They were used from the Blender Kit free materials library for Blender. This kit is awesome and also has some very useful brushes and models. And although the ruby stone is very darkish in this render, I wanted to keep it that way, but I changed some nodes’ configs to make the final render below, specially adding a missing transparent shader.

512 samples. As you can see, this shape is a lot similar to the one of my rough draft. And although Blender remesher algorithm is still a little more less fluid than the one in Zbrush (letting some holes and crevices in the mesh instead of a neat and flowy remesh), I have to say in its favor that it (combined with the metal materials) gives to the mesh some slight indentations that adds realism to the metal rendered.

I know that it isn’t everybody that has the time or the wish to read it all but I already learned a lot from written tutorials of Zbrush, and that’s why I’m sharing it, too. But even if a person skim his/her eyes through this step-by-step photos and also through the links or even focus on key terms of interest, it will hopefully inspire somebody else.

Now I am in the midst of some other greaater exercise than this, which you can follow the progress in my Instagram page, if you may. If you like it I may come back with more stuff like this, sharing my quick sketches. Thanks!

[FedPete]

It’s a lot of work. Looks like a project for 3D printing …
Thanks for sharing!

[linkc007]

Thanks Pete! I think I worked more because I wanted it only in Blender and because I had to take the screenshots and compose it… But it can be done in a hour or two, maybe.
In fact, it is part of a 3d printing greater sketch ! haha

who will this be?!

[Kevin-Brandon]

Keep it up guys!

[linkc007]

Thx for the support! after I finish my Mandalorian char in the instagram, I’ll reaveal the continuation of this “cemetery fence and a ‘guy’ aside”

[linkc007]

I remeshed it in Zbrush and prepared (baked) textures to put it out on Sketchfab, here you can see the results.

Unfortunatelly, I need to upload eight more models first in order to sell stuff there, or apply for being a seller sending an external portfolio (which I’m constructing right now). So this model is only there to be exhibited, for this while. Enjoy turntabling it

[FedPete]

Great texture, maybe some support for wear and tear (edges)?

[linkc007]

Thank you so much. Yeah, you just guessed what I was going after learning by now haha
If you could support me telling me which nodes take care of edges and adds the rust effects randomly I’d appreciate… I mean, it seems that Substance painter does that more easily…

Also, I skimmed something… a text saying about a kind of Substance painter-like program… marvelous painter, something like that. I’ll research it too

[FedPete]

I learned it to do with the pointines node. It it tels you where sharp edges are. But the last time I tried to use it from an old 2.79 project into 2.82 . It didn’t work any more. I got the opinion that it was a Blender bug.

But here an example.

[linkc007]

Yeah… in fact it doesn’t seem to work in 2.8+. Thanks anyway. When I get shorthanded on 3D resources I always recur to photoshop haha And this is what I did, by hand (also used Materialized for the other maps).

I added some rust effects, changed a little but just for testing. This is the result:

I could’ve worked more, a little but but… by now I’ll let it as it is, with no wear and tear. Also, the best program alternative to Substance painter seems to be the Mixer. Free for download

[FedPete]

I used this one as an alternative to pointines.

But my results are not so good as in the video.

Placement of the rust.
I would take in consideration,where people will hold the staff. less rust more metal.
But more a issue for fine tuning …

Have fun!

[linkc007]

Just to show you guys a feature I just find out, which is similar to Zbrush’s super handy Mask By Cavity.

I was modelling a cactus with several holes and wanted to add some spikes to those holes. So I created a vertex group and in Edit Mode (Faces) I went Select > Sharp Edges and assigned those selected edges to that group.

As you can see it totally worked. By the way, in texture paint there is a Mask By Cavity feature which is also very handy. If it was some metal object (as we were dealing earlier), we could also manually add rust to that, assigining those areas to a rusty texture.

Hope that helps !