ZBrush Masterclass Weekend : Live Sculpting and ZBrush Clinic

In this live ZBrush webinar weekend we include a live sculpting session to create some uniquely designed helmets, as well as discuss design decisions informed by forms and functions found in history. The weekend also includes a free ZBrush clinic, where you can bring your questions and challenges about ZBrush to John and he’ll go through your answers and other solutions to frequently asked questions about ZBrush. 

Saturday the 15th of August : ZBrush clinic (free entry)

Start Time: 20:00 BST (London)/12:00 PDT (Los Angeles)/15:00 EDT (New York)

Duration: 1.5 hours

Come along to ask your own questions about ZBrush and learn some high value tips about this versatile sculpting tool. We will answer questions such as these:-

• What are the differences between Zbrush CoreMini, Zbrush Core, and the full version of zbrush? Which do I really need?
• What are the most common brushes to get going with sculpting?
• When to use Dynamesh and Zremesher?
• Should I learn Zmodeler? What are the limitations and strengths?
• What are the differences in approach between hard surface and organic modeling tools in Zbrush?
• What are masks and how to use extractions to make clothing and armor?
• What are subtools and how to manage them?
• What are live booleans? and how to put them to work.
• How to project previously sculpted details onto a remeshed or retopoed model?

Sunday the 16th of August : Sculpting Masterclass

Start Time: 20:00 BST (London)/12:00 PDT (Los Angeles)/15:00 EDT (New York)

Duration: 1.5 hours

It is inspiring that armour designed during the middle ages was a major influence for the costume design of well-known futuristic characters, for example imperial soldiers as shown in the Star Wars movies.  

Creating real world armour includes a surprising  mix of skills. The armourer is a combination of artist, scientist, toolmaker, metallurgist, chemist, and engineer. A good armourer will have an understanding of mathematics, geometry, metallurgy, woodworking, and  leather-working thrown in as well!

Fortunately when sculpting virtual armour with ZBrush, you don’t need all of the above expertise, but there is still a fair amount to consider when thinking about the design!

In this live masterclass sculpting webinar, John Haverkamp sculpts a helmet with these learning points in mind:-

• Concept sculpting with basic Zbrush brushes.
• Design considerations around the dimensions of a 3D head.
• Extracting clean armor plates from a rough concept mesh.
• How to using Zbrush booleans to hollow out a helmet design to fit a DAZ Studio head perfectly.
• Clean hard surface topology generation.
• If we have time, we’ll go over some UV mapping for the sculpted articles.

Skills Required

Basic familiarity of ZBrush

Bonus ZBrush Tutorial set included with Premium Ticket  : How to sculpt a Spacecraft

Was designing a spaceship the real reason you got into 3D? Many of us did, as we didn’t quite have the sticking power at physics to become real rocket scientists!

Making a good spaceship is the hard part. Inventing a spacecraft that people really believe exists and has an identifiable purpose, and above all looks ‘cool’, is where your talent and artistry comes into play.

These tutorials utilise ZBrush to model a number of spaceship designs and John Haverkamp will walk you through his processes of design and sculpting to accomplish some eye catching spacecraft hardware.

Required: Basic to Intermediate knowledge of ZBrush

ZBrush versions 4R6, 4R7 or 4R8 can be used to follow along to these tutorials.

Total running time : 3 hours and 20 minutes

Bonus Pack : ZBrush asset pack, ZBrush spacecraft models, maps and textures

About John Haverkamp

John Haverkamp was born in Ohio and then moved to the pristine Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia at a young age. There he spent a semi-isolated childhood re-enacting the Lord of the Rings and being corrupted by Dungeons and Dragons. Always with the fondness for the fantastical and medieval, Art school drove him deeper into Luddite territory by granting him the skills of a traditional metal-smith. This meant post-college jobs making copper fountains, welding and steel fabricating, casting and finishing bronze sculptures, and working for an architectural blacksmith throughout his twenties.

Digitally, John got sucked into cyberspace and the arcane mysteries of 3D studio max. The perfect software match for John was Zbrush discovered six years ago. Now he teaches digital arts part time, and constantly endeavours to improve his craft as a digital-sculptor and visualizer through personal work, illustration and indie game projects.