So it’s been a while. Luckily I have something to show for it. You finally get to see Rupert’s back!

Texturing 2

Progress has been made, albeit slowly.

Texturing Rupert 1

So for the past several weeks I’ve been learning to paint in zBrush, a program designed by people who’ve used no other program ever. It’s been slow going to say the least. I finally figured out how to actually paint, then I deciphered the process of exporting that as a UV map and so I’ve finally started painting in earnest. Here’s my progress so far.

The Road So Far

So back in school I started a project to create a character over several classes.
I started with a maquette

I then moved on to a very simple model in Maya

Next came zBrush where I added a ton of detail

Since millions of polygons are tough to work with, I used 3dCoat to retopologize and back into Maya to finish the branches

After that I rigged it for animation and added leaves

Recently my awesome friend Angie gave him a high detail normal and displacement map (they’re really cool)

So now I’m learning to paint in zBrush and I’ll make sure the rig still works, then he’s ready for prime time