SCULPTING MINATURES WITH BOB PLOCIENNIK STUDENT WORK BY MIKKEL ARILDSEN SIGN UP FOR Y! CLASS TODA www vertexschool com workshop . . / Learn more about Bob Plociennik: https://www.artstation.com/bob MODEL BY BOB PLOCIENNIK SCULPTING MINIATURES I've been fascinated with sculpting miniatures since I first started working at pixel logic in 2008. However, It wasn’t until I met Bob Plociennik that I begin to see the beauty of its workflows. In fact, it’s the closest career you can get to pure sculpting. In this small e-book, my goal is to document Bob Plociennik's amazing teachings and his student's incredible artwork. Much of the imagery that you see here comes directly from Bob’s students at Vertex who continue to be a source of inspiration to me and the entire team here. The quality of their work is a real testament to Bob. One of the most popular miniatures Kickstarter, created by Reaper Miniatures, shows us the potential of this industry by bringing in roughly $3.5 million in just one Kickstarter alone. Tainted Grail: The Fall Of Avalon brought in over $6 million for its Kickstarter involving miniatures. While those Kickstarters were a few years ago the trend doesn't seem to be declining. In 2020, Blacklist Miniatures was able to raise over $1 million for their miniatures project. In fact, Bob himself has been involved in projects they got hundreds of thousand of dollars in funding on Kickstarter. If you’re looking to learn more about this innovative career then make sure to read through this ebook and check out Bob’s class at Vertex. We'll start this conversation up by introducing you to two of Bob's students, Eamon Rilley and Mikkel Arildsen. Their projects are a great introduction to the five basic steps of sculpting miniatures: Sculpting the body Sculpting the equipment Posing Sculpting clothing Cutting and keying for 3-D printing I hope you enjoy this, and make sure to follow me at the links below to stay up-to-date on my efforts with creative tech and careers for artists. -Ryan Kingslien EAMON REILLY DEMONSTRATES THE PROCESS Eamon, in the series of images and steps below, demonstrates Bob’s workflow 100%. Check it out. BODY The first step is to create a simple body using the maquette sculpting approach in ZBrush. The purpose of the body is the establish the proportions and provide a base for the equipment and clothing. EQUIPMENT The second step is to build the equipment Using really simple sculpting workflows. Because of the size of miniatures there’s not a lot of detail to put into the model in the shapes have to read well so the primary focus is on big blocky shapes. POSE The third step is to pose your model. This is usually done before creating the clothing so that the clothing can be done in pose. Usually this is done entirely inside of ZBrush using The gizmo and it’s Multi Select feature. CLOTHING The fourth step is to create the clothing. Again, you use very simple geometry so that the big shapes read first. CUTTING In step five you cut the model into separate parts for 3-D printing and make sure that you build keys so that they fit snugly together later. For example, the arms are usually cut from the body and then re-assembled by the customer. MIKKEL ARILDSEN DEMONSTRATES THE PROCESS Mikkel Arildsen’s model used a slightly different approach. In his case he sculpted all of the clothing in the default pose and then spent time re-positioning and adjusting it. This is 100% acceptable as you may have your miniature in many different poses. BODY In step one, he creates the body. Notice the proportions and the thickness of the hips, legs, and knee. This has to be printed so we don’t want to have realistic shapes that are too thin and will break. EQUIPMENT In this step, Mikkel creates the equipment and the clothing so that he’s free to make many different poses. The same sculpting workflows are used and you’ll learn about those shortly. POSE, CLOTHS & FUR In step three, he poses the clothing, the character, and all of the equipment. Mikkel's example is one of the best that’s been produced in this course. Notice how much detail there is in the fur mantle on the shoulder, as well as around the waist. The diversity of shape in the fur around the boots is, I think, a fantastic example. The silhouette is engaging while the sculpting never really repeats. Also, the shapes are very easy to read from a distance or at the scale of miniatures. CUTTING Step four shows where Mikkel cut the model for 3-D printing and assembly on the base. We won’t get much into the cutting phase in this e-book but it's not as complicated as you might think. BODY Let’s talk about the body now. Remember, this is designed to be a base for your model so it’s important not to take it too far. Also, remember that you are 3D printing something that might be 2 inches tall or less. Just like how the size of Michelangelos David required him to increase the size of the head so does our smaller scale require us to increase certain parts. In the image sequence below you can see how humans model progresses from the base body to the pose with the equipment to the final sculpt with clothing. This is a reminder that it’s super important not to get too caught up on anatomical landmarks but to keep your forms accurate yet simple. Another thing to note from Eamon's sculpt is the size of the hands. If these were realistically proportioned, they would basically break off at 3-D printing or once the customer got them. Also, notice how the hands are sculpted almost closed, like they’re grabbing something. That’s a pretty normal way to do hands. MODEL BY EAMON REILLY In Mikkel's example below, you can see that he took the body a little bit further but the anatomy remains simple. For example, look at the knee. There is a slight indication of the patella though it's minor. One note of caution in the space model is that the ankles are too small and likely to break. they bring. Also, I mentioned this before but I think this is a great example of how to sculpt detail like the fur without getting too much repetition. These bits are sculpted with VDM brushes in ZBrush and you can learn more about that powerful workflow HERE. In his final sculpt this is mitigated by the size of the boots and the thickness that ARTWORK BY MIKKEL ARILDSEN MAQUETTE WORKFLOW Miniature sculpting is as close to pure sculpting as you can get in terms of a job. The workflows are simple. The shapes, while accurate, usually remain simple. In the next few pages we'll show you the simple maquette process that we use. This is not limited to miniature sculpting. it just works incredibly well for us. STEP ONE The first step is to insert basic shapes using ZBrushes Insert Primitives brush. In the image to the right, Bob has inserted separate cylinders for the upper arm and lower arm. STEP TWO The second step is to make sure that they represent the general shape that they’re intended to. In this example the forms are stretched out beyond the silhouette of the upper arm to mimic the structure better. STEP THREE In step three, we merge the two primitives together. First, there Dynameshed together to integrate them and then we use the ZRemesh to create better topology. STEP FOUR In step four, you want to establish the basic shapes. For example, the bicep vs the forearm can be sculpted more clearly at this stage. STEP FIVE This is a continuation of step four. We put this in here just to give you an example of what a finished sculpt might look like. Note how each section is separated from the other. ANOTHER EXAMPLE In this example we are going to look at how you can use the Maquette workflow to simplify something that might seem complicated in the beginning like hands... STEP ONE Add a sphere as a SubTool and adjust its size and position using the gizmo. This is standard Maquette operating procedure. STEP TWO Using the gizmo, you can flatten the sides of the sphere to help you create the primary block of the hand. Press CTRL, click on the scale button, and move left or right. STEP THREE Add a sphere as another SubTool and sculpt it into a small cylinder that might represent one segment of your finger. STEP FOUR Duplicate that sphere on itself to create the remaining three sections of your finger by pressing control and clicking on the gizmo's transform arrows. STEP FIVE Repeat that process for each finger and the thumb. Then sculpt them a little bit, keeping in mind that you don’t want any space between them. STEP SIX Dynamesh them at a relatively high level and continue sculpting. Notice how the hands are partially closed as though they’re grasping something. SUMMARY The Maquette sculpting workflow's basic approach is to add a primitive shape such as a sphere, cylinder, cube and then modify that primitive to create the shape we need. Once you’ve established the basic shape you will then Dynamesh them and ZRemesh to make them easier to work with. So again, the steps are relatively simple. Add a primitive shape Adjust and sculpt the primitive shape Dynamesh and ZRemesh to create better topology Continue sculpting The biggest point of contention when doing this is knowing what parts of the body to combine and what parts to keep separate. So I’ve included a few more examples below and to the right to help you. The best practice goes as follows. Head Torso and neck Shoulders Arms and hands Legs and feet Remember, that this stage of the body isn’t about 3-D printing it’s about providing a poseable base for us to build on. That explains why the shoulders are their own entity. ARTWORK BY BEVERLY CROCK ARTWORK ARTWORK BY BY BOB BOB PLOCIENNIK, PLOCIENNIK, AKSELI AKSELI VARG, VARG, EAMON EAMON REILLY, REILLY, (CLOCKWISE) (CLOCKWISE) EQUIPMENT In the section where to walk through a relatively simple example of a shield. One of the things that's really important to remember about sculpting miniatures as opposed to, for example, sculpting for games is that it’s not realistic... If you sculpt a shield that has straps for somebody to put their arms in, for example, you don’t sculpt a realistic strap with a realistic level of thickness. That simply won’t print or, if it does, it will break. Instead, you sculpt a thick strap that interpenetrates with the shield itself and interpenetrates with the arm to create a fully printable mesh. One of the most common workflows for Bob Plociennik is to simply duplicate the mesh he’s on, trim it to the basic shape, and then merge them together. Let’s take a high-level look at this process. You might have questions after this, but hopefully this will give you a birds-eye view on how miniature sculptors keep it simple. ARTWORK BY URKO GALDONA SHIELD STEP ONE The first step in building a shield is to create a series of 3D cubes and transform to look like planks. Keep them a little bit apart from each other. We will add a filler later. STEP TWO Sculpt simple wood grain lines in using the standard brush or the dam_standard brush. STEP THREE Continue sculpting and offset the planks a little bit from each other just to create more variation and remove any bias. SHIELD CONT'D STEP FOUR Add a cylinder as a SubTool so that you use Live Boolean to cut the planks into a circular shield. To learn more about Booleans, go HERE. STEP FIVE Double check the result did mesh from Booleans, and make sure it’s what you want. This is when you might need to resculpt areas. STEP SIX Insert a filler between the boards using a cylinder. You can append a cylinder as a SubTool and then use the gizmo to scale it and place it. STEP SEVEN Add an edge to your shield by adding in a Taurus primitive and Using the gizmo to flatten the front and the back. STEP EIGHT Append a simple box and scale it to roughly the size of the straps. It's a box, don't overthink this step... hop to it. STEP NINE Use the trim curve brush to establish the basic profile of the strap. Be mindful that we’re only doing the outer profile. We want the geometry to stretch and intersect with the shield itself. STEP TEN Sculpt the individual straps a bit and use the Insert Primitives brush to add small cylindrical shapes that look like rivets. ARTWORK ARTWORK BY BY MARCO MARCO ROBERTO ROBERTO SASSI, SASSI, JASON JASON NADEAU, NADEAU, STUART STUART MILLAR, MILLAR, SCOTT SCOTT SLEETER SLEETER (CLOCKWISE) (CLOCKWISE) MODEL BY BEVERLY CROCK HOW TO POSE A MODEL One of the things that you’ll note is that while posing your character they are essentially nude but with their equipment. Basically, they are on their way to burning man. When posing always start with the torso. One of the common mistakes people make is to not tilt the figure first. Make sure you do that first step so that you’ll have a proper offset from your pelvic structure to your rib cage. One of the big areas of confusion here is: How do I pose all of my SubTools?! The answer is in a relatively new feature of the ZBrush's gizmo called Multi-Select. You can learn more about it HERE. MODEL BY BOB PLOCIENNIK THE STEPS MERGE THE BODY PARTS In this first step, you want to merge the entire body into one mesh. The head, the neck, torso, the arms, legs. Trust us, it makes posing much easier. TWO BODIES Once combined, Dynamesh the model, duplicate it as a SubTool, and then ZRemesh the duplicate to a lower level of geometry. BUILD RESOLUTION LEVELS Divide the ZRemeshed model several times and, with the Dynameshed version visible, click Project All in the SubTool sub-palette. This is what you'll pose. HOW TO POSE CONT'D TILT THE FIGURE Go to the lowest subdivision level, select all the SubTools and rotate the model off axis. This is one of the most important stages to the process. USE MULTI-SELECT Select just the subtools that connect to the chest, arms and head. Learn more how to Multi-Select HERE. CREATE MASK Create a mask that stops above the pelvic area by pressing CTRL, clicking on the pelvic area, and dragging upwards towards the chest. ROTATE PARTS Position the 3D gizmo and rotate the chest. With Multi-Select on, all the other parts will move as well. The goal is to get the slight bend of a contrapposto pose. You can push it later. CONTINUE WITH ARMS Continue selecting the SubTools, masking the mesh and rotating the mesh. In this case, you’re going to work with the arms. It’s wise to start with the forearm, then do the shoulders. CONTINUE WITH LEGS In the legs, it’s usually wise to rotate at the hip and then rotate the lower leg. Follow the same procedure of selecting the SubTools, masking the mesh, rotating the part. HOW TO POSE CONT'D THE OTHER LEG Make sure your legs are positioned so that the model can stand on a base. I’d like to turn perspective off and look at it in a sideview to make sure they're planted. RESCULPT Sculpt the boots so that their band works correctly and wrinkles the leather and fine tune the rest of the model. MODEL BY BOB PLOCIENNIK ARTWORK BY URKO GALDONA, SCOTT SLEETER, CAILON EARL (CLOCKWISE) CLOTHS & FUR Sculpting the clothing for miniatures one of the first things I learned that really opened my eyes to the powerful but simple sculpting approaches of this industry. As a production artist, I often think about sculpting things like shirts and arm bracers in extraordinary detail... thinking about how the straps underneath the arm bracer would connect and whether they were sewen or riveted together. In miniatures, an arm brace is basically a cylinder that interpenetrates with the arm. It has to. 3-D Printing at that scale doesn’t allow for any space between the arm brace and the arm itself. It needs to be watertight. There are so many really awesome examples I want to show you from Bob’s class but we’re gonna have to focus on just a few so we can get this publication out to you. In this section, we’re going to look at first how you sculpt pants. Then we’re look at sculpting a loincloth, a cape, the fur mantle and a brief look at Chainmail. Just a few things. Remember, there are three basic approaches: Duplicate a SubTool and sculpt on that. Add geometry either as a SubTool or using Insert Mesh and then sculpting on that. Use Dynamesh or a ZRemesh for repetitive forms. Remember, the key to miniatures sculpting is to focus on the big forms and make sure that everything is very readable at a small scale. One tip, scale your model down on the canvas to see how it reads. MODEL BY MIKKEL ARILDSEN STEPS DUPLICATE BODY To sculpt the pants, we duplicate the bodies SubTool. Then we can delete parts of the torso and the feet using the Trim Curve brush. You may need to delete subdivision levels to achieve this. SCULPT Once you’ve created a base shape, then start sculpting with Clay Tubes brush to establish the folds and characteristics of the clothing. Remember, leather will create different folds than cotton. ADD LOIN CLOTH GEOMETRY To sculpt the loincloth, it is easier to just add a cube as either a SubTool or with Insert Mesh and sculpt it into the shape. Remember to focus on big movements. ADD CAPE GEOMETRY To create the cape simply add a 3-D plane to your model. Make sure this is not a box. You do not want any depth at this stage or it will be painful when you start sculpting. USE DEFORMERS If you have the Cape draped over the shoulder, it’s easiest to use the Bend Arc deformer. Learn more about the deformers HERE. SCULPT IT Use the standard brush to sculpt the long flowing lines that you think might result from the pose. Use the Move brush to sweep the 3D plane into action as well STEPS ADD THICKNESS Use ZModeler to extrude all the polygons of the cape and build thickness. make sure you've sculpted all your forms first. It's painful to sculpt thin surfaces. ADD GEOMETRY FOR FUR MANTLE Our barbarian has a short fur cape around his neck. To start that, we insert a 3-D sphere and just rough it up to the general shape we want using Clay Tubes. CREATE VDM BRUSH FOR FUR To sculpt the fur, we use VDM brushes. First, of course, you’ve got to create your own brush or download one. To learn more about how to create your own go HERE. SCULPT IT Once you have your brush, start adding hair clumps at irregular intervals all over the model. Note, it’s wise to have many different hair clumps in your VDM brush. ADD GEOMETRY FOR CHEST ARMOUR To create the chain mail on the chest, we start with a simple cylindrical shape that sculpted to the general shape of the body. CREATE CHAIN MAIL MESH Start with a poly plane and add a Ring 3D as a SubTool. Duplicate and position the Ring 3D until you create a basic repetitive chain mail pattern like you see on the left. STEPS CREATE CHAIN MAIL NANOMESH BRUSH Select the chain mail mesh in the SubTool list. Then, in the Brush palette, under the Create sub-pallet, press Create InsertMesh. Select New from the pop-up. Finally, press Create NanoMesh Brush. ADD NANOMESH TO CHEST ARMOUR Select the NanoMesh brush you just created and hover over a polygon face. Press the SPACEBAR and select NanoMesh and All Polygons. Then click on the polygon face and drag out your NanoMesh. REPOSITION CHAIN LINKS Convert NanoMesh to geometry. Then use the Move brush with Mask By Polygroup on to adjust the position of the links. CRY HAVOC! Have fun rotating the model around and checking out all the cool angles and take a break before you get into the 3-D printing and cutting phase of that, which we'll probably put in another e-book. We did it! Next up... 3D Printing! SUMMARY Our goal in this publication was to introduce you to some of the simple workflows and give you a chance to assess whether or not this is something you think you could do or want to learn. If you’re looking for a career where you just get to sculpt and don’t have to worry about texturing and rendering or dealing with crazy details then consider miniatures. Techniques like duplicating your model and sculpting the pants. Techniques like adding in a simple block for a loincloth and then sculpting that block. Techniques like building your character's body from simple primitive cylinders. Hopefully though, we’ve been able to inspire you just a little bit with Bob’s amazing teachings And the results of his amazing students. If you’re thinking of starting a career in games then you might also want to consider miniatures as a starting off point. I’ve known several game artist who started their careers by sculpting miniatures. It’s a great way to learn how to work on deadline as well as working towards specific specs. Of course, there is a lot more to this and we are giving you a very highlevel perspective so if this is something you want to learn more about then consider Bob’s class and we'll see you there. Often, when we are on our own learning and developing our skills we can get sidelined by unrealistic expectations or just not having a clear sense of what the final product actually needs to look like. Learn more about the course at: https://www.vertexschool.com In this e-book we’ve looked at the simple sculpting techniques. Much love, Ryan Learn more about Bob Plociennik at: https://www.artstation.com/bob P.S. Check out more of Bob's incredible work in the following pages. MODEL BY BOB PLOCIENNIK MODELS BY BOB PLOCIENNIK MODELS BY BOB PLOCIENNIK
