Character Setup

Base Model was created in Maya. It was exported as an FBX then brought into Z Brush.

The polygons are as simple as possible. Z brush is incredible at up-resing as long as the general shape exists.

The majority of polygons exist currently in the head.

When making it in Maya, the technique was to make half the body, mirror it and weld/merge vertices along the center.

This is made to be your standard 6ft tall character model.

All detail was created along 5 to 6 sessions of approximately 2 hours each.

This character is not only a study on anatomical structure, but is made to be especially muscular.

The Abs/Stomach tend to stick out just as far as the pecs, if not more so.

The main tools used within Z Brush were the standard, dam standard, clay buildup, and having symmetry on. The entire time.

The neck/cobra muscles are especially large. This is toned down in a different version to return the possibility of having a neck to the character.

Many of the faces features are very distinct. The eyes are separate objects placed into the face.

Many of the same tools were used as with the rest of the body. The move tool however was used much more so when the face came to be. 

Heads in real life tend not to be perfectly round, and in this persons case has more 'alien' esc shape with the skull going pretty far behind the neck.

The ears are pretty flat. Sort of cauliflower like, as in the case of a fighter having cauliflower ears.

Without texture or hair the back of the head tends to be very smooth and uninteresting. 

Pants with side armor was the first to be added. This is in accordance to the character being referenced having medieval armor.

Poofy pants was goal, especially when detailing along the thigh area.

Belt details were additionally added to the pants. Otherwise IMM brushes and imflat were the main brushes used.

The side armor itself was a simple scale IMM.

A good thing about the pants is that it still allows some of the best aspects of this characters anatomy to show. Namely the back and shoulders. 

A cape, chest armor, shoulder armor, and shirt have been added. The shirt was made with the imflat tool and in Z Brush cloth simulation.

For the chest plate the ring tool was used then duplicated and combined. A flatten brush was used. Then a buckle eye IMM and shoulder strap IMM.

The shoulder plates are hard to see currently, but they were made with the scale IMM tool. The side in which the character wields a sword has smaller shoulder armor then the off-hand in accordance to actual medieval armor.

The cape started as a plane which was set in a diagonal position. The imflat and move tool were utilized to make into a basic shape. Then a repeating process of cloth simulation, pause to mask, and blur mask was done until the simulation brought the cape to the floor plane.

The base settings for cloth simulation was mostly used. Volume collisions were turned on, and the variable next to resolution was set to 0 to prevent the fabric from expanding.

Hair was added with Fiber Mesh loadout and masking pen on the face.

Various groom brushes were utilized to shape it.

With the operation of doing so being to first push all of the air up, then push it back.

The eyebrows and beard are short enough to where shaping was unnecessary.

The mustache was groomed with a groom curl brush.

All renders are from the build in high poly rendering within Z Brush.