theSchap's Blog

Over a decade has passed; Koreans have been holding tournaments of grandeur; and gamers have been living and breathing Real Time Strategy. My climb from Bronze to Silver is going to be a tough one.

Starcraft II has been out since July 27, 2010, and I picked it up first day. I had it pre-ordered at GameStop for the sole purpose of beta access, which I haven’t done for a long freaking time. The Mall of America is the closest GameStop location and take my word for it when I say, going to MOA for one item is a pain in the ass.

I did a fair amount of playing while in the beta, so I was familiar with the units, and some of their abilities. I wasn’t completely sure of what was different, because I had played the first Starcraft, but it wasn’t a religion. I was too busy pimping out my Fireball, and throwing up walls of fire and devil horns in the name of Diablo! Diablo the game that is, Diablo the demon needed to die… multiple times.

I was however addicted to Age of Empires then, in much the same way I’m addicted to Starcraft II now. After getting spanked in a bad way over and over I watched better players to learn new strategies, and practiced my build order over and over again. Eventually I was very good at storming an opponent’s loggers with a gaggle of chariot archers at about 9 minutes in. This shocked and awed many, as well as infuriating others, but it gave me a great sense of satisfaction. The idea of guys hard at work cutting lumber, only to have sticks shot into their backs by guys on chariots was amusing to me. I then backed it up with a Monty Python taunt that I had downloaded just to rub it in. I had spent a lot of time mastering an aspect of the game, and it paid off. THAT is what I am searching for in SCII! The competition seems much tougher, and SCII is better balanced, which really forces you to know what all the units and buildings do. This will make the quest tougher, but it will make the payoff that much more rewarding.

The first month has been a very educational one. My win to loss ratio is about even, with the loss side a bit heavier, but I still feel like a champion. I have found learning the depths of SCII very satisfying. I notice an improvement in every game, except when I”m matched against a Diamond League player. That’s when I improve my skills at crying.

I’ve learned the importance of macro, and micro. These aren’t new terms to a RTS veteran, but it took several YouTube commentaries to figure out what it actually meant. Macro is basically your Strategy, while you could say micro is your… “Real Time”? Your build order (order in which you expand your base), unit composition, upkeep on military and economy, and use of specific advantages (terrain, flight, choke points, barricades, etc), are all examples of your macro. This is the aspect of the game I feel I am improving the most and I think that’s true for anyone starting the game. Just learning the units and environment will help you considerably, which anyone that has ever played a competitive game online will tell you. Being able to find the sniper rifle, and reach a vantage point, is synonymous with placing a bunch of Hydralisks at the mouth of a choke point so when an army of Marines comes through fewer of them will be able to shoot you. Micro is a small and extremely quick game within the macro game. It is an entire concept I never really thought about until I saw the way really good players controlled their units. They didn’t just select a group of units, then tell them to attack something. While attacking they would break their army up into groups, usually grouped by unit type, and they would give all sorts of tiny instructions to maximize the effectiveness of their army. In our earlier sniping example, micro would be your ability to aim and fire. Suppose the target is moving and you have to lead it to hit it. This micro example seems more obvious than it’s SCII counterpart. Say you are going into a battle with your Hydralisks again and you are able to micro your injured units to the back of the group where he won’t get hit, and the front line of marines will have to change targets. This will keep more of your units alive to fight again later. Micro often requires very small, quick inputs that can only be mastered by playing the game. Just thinking about how you could click on stuff isn’t going to improve your ability to click on stuff.

I’ve also learned the importance of the HOT KEY. It’s very beneficial to have the ability of accessing things that you can’t see on the screen. This improved both the macro and micro aspects of my game enormously. I can now harass someone, while still managing my base. On the micro side, being able to quickly select a specific unit group and perform a power is crucial to any combat situation. This HOT KEYing has spread beyond Starcraft II and has also improved my retention and use of HOT KEYs in Max/Maya, Flash, and Photoshop. I often thought it more time consuming to look down at the keyboard and make sure you have the correct keys lined up, but building that muscle memory can speed things up.

Assisting me in my journey thus far have been a great group of YouTube channels. Most notably; HuskyStarcraft, TheUENtv, SC2NoobSchool, HDStarcraft, and HunterStarcraft. They offer great tips, as well as commentary on some of the highest level games in North America and South Korea. They also pointed me at some great sites for tournaments, and information. The most valuable site so far has been SC2Mapster. SCII comes with an amazing map editor, which has allowed people to create Tetris, and custom tutorial levels to test certain aspects of your game. I’m currently having the most trouble with the multitasking trainer. My damn probe keep dying. Husky and HD also have a site up with a lot of great community information at Starcraft Arena

So how far have I come on my quest thus far, well here are my current league standings.

theSchap on BNet

There’s more information there than most of you could ever care about, but come on back and check it out from time to time. I’ll have periodic updates on what I have learned, and where I got the information. This is the information age, and there’s not excuse for sucking at Starcraft II! Ok maybe there are, but this should help you out if it bothers you that you suck. The Protoss Void Ray still seems too powerful against my Zerg and a ball of Terran will almost always turn my troops back into a spawning pool. Only time will tell if this is a balancing issue, or my own ineptitude.

This concept is a slew of different ideas. I have a building that has in some way opened a portal in which dinosaurs are falling through. I have a modern pyramid type building which is lit predominantly by helicopters. Finally I have a sky tram shooting high above the cityscape.

If the image is too dark on your display please let me know. I tend to work dark.

Cyberpunk city

Who: Developed by Rovio Mobil LTD, and Published by Clickgamer

What: Strategy, Action

Where: Up in the sky somewhere probably. I don’t watch birds much so I’m unsure. Maybe in the jungle?

When: Available in the app Store for $0.99

Why: Physics games allow the player to create their own gameplay, and because of this, they are filled with addictive fun.

This game seemed to be all the buzz a month or so ago, but there is so much content that I didn’t feel like I experienced it all enough until now. Hell, I updated last week and BOOM! There were another 15 maps added!

The game begins with some bastard pigs stealing your precious bird eggs. Oh the horrible things pigs will do to eggs. This enrages your posse of birds and you take to the skies… I mean slingshots, in retaliation. Apparently all these birds are some kind of penguin hybrid because they are unable to fly. I remember launching cats from a slingshot into mine fields of missiles and razer porcupines, but cats lack wings so the whole thing just seemed to make sense.

Yellow is a bit.... angry?

Once you are motivated by the story to kick some bacon filled ass, you are thrown into the game. The goal is quite simple. Demolish structures and pigs with the power of projectile birds. At lease that’s the only power you have to rely upon early on. Later on you get birds with super powers like dive bomb and explode. Yes explode! I’m not sure if they took a page out of Goldeneye or filled them with Pepto-Bismol, but the result is grand.

Pigs in ice, glass, something.

I couldn’t help but get some sense of 3 Little Pigs nostalgia. Sure you aren’t a wolf. If you are a wolf and reading this give me a call sometime. However, you are destroying structures that house pigs, and that’s close enough for me. These structures are also made out of various materials: wood, glass, and stone. Each of these types have a bird that does especially well against them. Allow me to introduce your arsenal of destruction.

• Red Bird – Standard Kamikaze. It’s special power is laughter. The sound that comes out of this bird is incredible. At first I didn’t think it had a special attack, but ooh was I ever wrong.
• Yellow Bird – Chopper. This triangle shaped bird will demolish wood structures very quickly with it’s special dive attack. This will also allow it to reach areas some of your other birds cannot.
• Blue Birds – Spreader. With the tap of a finger this bird can instantly reproduce asexually giving birth to two equal size children. These spawns will then take a modified path of trajectory, which will increase your damage area. These birds are also very affective against glass. All this has increased my awareness of these multiplying and glass destroying avians.
• Black Birds – Grenade – Whether activated manually, or after colliding with something, these birds blow the crap out of stuff. They also hammer through rocks very well.
• White Birds – Bombers – They have the same hammering abilities as the Black Birds, but instead of exploding, they drop an atomic egg. These do a decent amount of damage, but lack the force found in the grenadiers. As an added bonus, upon payload expulsion they shoot diagonally up into the air with a lot of speed.
• Green Birds - Boomerang - As the name suggests, these guys are capable of making a full turn mid flight at your command. This allows for some very strategic flanking opportunities when avoiding forward defenses.

The pigs come in a variety of flavors as well. Some small, which makes them a bit harder to hit, but they have lower hit-points, and of course the larger guys with more hit-points. There is also a group that wears a helmet and these can take a beating. It’s often best to drop a rock on them, or take them out with a direct hit from any of your birds.

Birds vs Pigs

The draw of this game, like that of most games in this genre, is the physics engine. Clearing an entire level with one well placed bird is insanely gratifying. Occasionally, trying to get all three shiny gold stars as a reward for conquering a level can get a bit frustrating. Some levels seem to require several perfectly aimed, down to the degree in some cases it appears, shots to complete a level. I may also be going about it wrong, and often find revisiting a level a day or so later helps me get that elusive third star. The number of stars rewarded correlates directly to your score. Points are rewarded when your birdie projectiles hit destructible objects, destroy stuff, and obviously when you kill a pig. You will also be given 10,000 points for every bird you have left over after performing piggy genocide. Breaking that three star score ceiling will often pit destroying all the level, against conserving as many birds as you can. That decision combined with where you decided to put each of your birds makes this a highly strategic game.

Quantitative Review:

• Gameplay: 9.3 - Using a well implemented physics system to allow player discovered gameplay has been a popular game model for the past few years. This model combined with fun objectives within the game create a very addictive experience. Angry birds does this well. Added to the game are Easter eggs, quite literally and they are gold, which unlock special levels where strategy is less of a factor, and playing with the physics engine is the point.
• Visual: 9.0 - Like most games on the iPhone the art style is very Flash-like. For a system that still doesn’t support Adobe Flash and never will, because Steve Jobs says it’s dead, and he has more followers than Jesus, there are a lot of games that look like they were developed within Flash. Animation is fairly limited, but the expressions on the birds and pigs are awesome. Seeing a bird go from determined to unconscious is pretty funny.
• Sound: 9.2 - The title music is fun and the bird noises are hilarious. Just activate the Red Bird’s “special” power and you will know what I mean.
• Presentation: 9.2 - The game loads up fast, and getting into the game is easy. Most importantly, reloading up a level you failed, or aren’t doing so well on is nearly instant. This is essential when you are going for a high score and keep messing up. The only improvement I think it needs is a small preview of the level, instead of just a generic thumbnail. It would help when trying to find a particular level that has been giving you trouble.

• Discovered Gameplay: 8.4 - So much playability can be added by taking advantage of a game’s physics engine. This game has a few levels that really showcase their engine as standard levels, and even more so as unlocked bonus levels. However, I think they could have added more “playground” type levels where players can just mess around with the different systems. I hope more levels like these are on their way.

• Overall: 9.0 - For the price there is no reason to not have this game, besides not having the hardware, or a wi-fi connection, or fingers, or I’m just going to stop there. It features a crazy amount of fun for a dollar. The game is free of bugs, and it only did things I didn’t intend when I was trying to move fast and accidentally shot of one of my birds, often backwards. This doesn’t even suck that bad because there is an achievement for doing this if you take the time to sign up for a Crystal account.

Frequent content updates, combined with already addictive gameplay make this purchase very easy to stomach.

Here I’m just messing around with some different elements from the Aztec culture.

A normal building and an altered building.

Hello again!

It has been a while since I had a moment to work on side projects. An infant/toddler, freelance work, and building a deck will keep a person busy.

Below you will see an environment concept for the IGDA Twin Cities video game, Extinction FIST! You play Chuck, a man hell bent on making sure dinosaurs are extinct.

Who: Developed and Published by PopCap Games

What: Strategy, Action, Tower Defense with a twist

Where: Tomorrow in your backyard, so get your ass to the market!

When: Available now in the app Store for $2.99; Windows & Mac for $19.95

Why: Because zombies must die and plants are very affective. Though I don’t recall plants being a recommended method for zombie extermination according to The Zombie Survival Guide, which by the way can also be read while doing the pooping.

I first heard about Plants vs Zombies through Steam. Even though it has zombies, and the intrigue of killing them with plants, I waited. I was hoping for it to be on the weekend specials list or something even more amazing. This is until I was cruising the top paid apps on my phone a couple weeks ago and saw this game at five stars, over one thousand reviews, and at $2.99. I couldn’t pass it up.

My first experience with PopCap Games is with the Team Fortress 2 skinned Peggle. This game offered an addictive quality and level of production that impressed the crap out of me, which is usually invited, but I was at my computer. Plants vs Zombies is even better. Peggle’s gameplay depended largely on luck (after about the second or third bounce) for a successful outcome. PvZ is very deep in strategy; derived from Magic: The Gathering or something. Hence there are many effective strategies for obliterating zombies in each level type, and it’s great fun testing them all,and  risking more unorthodox methods.

The Achievement system helps to promote these tougher methods of playing. Recent Achievement systems seem to reward the player for doing an obscene quantity of some trivial task. I love an Achievement that proposes a way of playing that you wouldn’t normally think of. This makes those extra Gamerscore points, or the moral boosting message “Achievement Unlocked”, more enticing. They add new depth to the game instead of locking that special feeling of completion behind a monotonous wall of time sinks.

Check out this wall!

Plants vs Zombies at a glance plays like a tower defense game. You build some stuff that must kill some other stuff , which gets you stuff, before it reaches a goal; probably comprised of stuff. The title of the game should help you figure some of that “stuff” out. You build plants that must kill zombies. Killing zombies gives you coins, and unlocks plants and tools. These will help you stop the zombies from getting to their goal; Your brain! Or possibly Brian. In previous tower defense games that I’ve played, the path to the goal is predetermined on a grid, or created by the placement of your towers. In PvZ the zombies work from right to left in six distinct rows. This puts you in a much more defensive position. You get a better sense of protecting yourself opposed to taking enemies down as they pass without any fear of losing your defenses.

The great inventory of foliage in PvZ is complimented perfectly by the ranks of zombies they must abolish. You will be faced with your everyday zombie, well armored zombie, nimble zombie (they aren’t ninjas or anything… though they should be), and super offensive zombies that if they aren’t disposed of quickly, you are fucked. Micheal Jackson even makes an appearance! I knew the past few months have just been an elaborate setup for the greatest performance of Thriller EVER!  There is one zombie that I haven’t found yet, the Yeti Zombie, and he just sounds epic. My guess is I have to buy some stuff from Crazy Dave, or maybe play a level a certain way?

Hmm... what to choose.

The adventure mode introduces you to all your plant friends slowly, as it ramps up the number, and difficulty of the hungry undead. You begin with peashooters, literally. These are Snork looking things fueled by sunlight gathered by (for some reason) sunflowers. Sunlight must be powerful because these peashooters fire ammo that defies gravity. No trajectory whatsoever. Though the bank won’t hang on to sunlight so there is no interest system in this game. When the sun goes down you get an interesting array of mushrooms, which I think are the most unique group of allies. They have their own special sunlight generating shroom, but the sunflower will also help out but at a reduced rate. The final group is the roof group. Due to the grade of the roof you must use catapults otherwise you end up hitting the shingles a couple rows up. This group’s high point is the corn cob catapult that shoots bits of corn and globs of butter that stick to your attacker’s head, stopping them in their tracks. The game ends in a great climax, but I will not spoil it for you. This is followed by a sweet Portal like credits music video titled “Zombie on your lawn”.

Finishing adventure mode unlocks quick play, which allows you to play any of the levels you passed in adventure mode, but with all the plants you have aquired. I just now realized this! Starting an Adventure campaign after the first play through will ramp up the difficulty by allowing Crazy Dave to select some of your plants. The level must be completed using these, and whichever you choose for yourself. This game just keeps giving. I wonder what happens when I do this a few times. Maybe I get the Yeti Zombie! I’m going to keep playing.

He catapults basketballs and has butter on his head. Teehee

Quantitative review:

• Gameplay: 9.4 - PopCap has taken what you know about tower defense games and has slapped it in the face,  thrown in some zombies, armed you with plants, and provided modes and levels to satisfy your deepest zombie brutalizing needs. With all the action on the screen I was surprised how infrequently I misplaced or selected the wrong weapon due to the touch interface. While placing flora, a press will highlight the gridded square and a release will plant it. I didn’t play the PC version, but I’ve read some of the features and this one is a bit inferior in content. The big brother includes a garden mode where you grow stuff and get money or something? I don’t care, I’m sick of growing virtual stuff.  The game modes that are included, and are likely not named as follows are:

1. Zombie Nut Ball Bowling
2. Horde Defense Kill Time Fun
3. Whack-a-Zombie Dead Some More
4. Mini-Zombie Explosion Fest
5. Risky Treasure Hunt… Jar Things

Choose wisely.

• Visual: 9.6 - The artwork is superb. There is a terrific level of detail built into this small screen, and it manages to maintain a very clean and user friendly experience. Everything feels alive with fluid idle animations. When the action begins, the peas squash, the watermelons explode, and zombies loose limbs and heads as you would expect. I did notice some slow down when several zombies, dozens of projectiles, explosions, and fire filled nearly every pixel of the screen, but it didn’t affect interaction. I blame the 3GS.
• Sounds: 9.5 - From music to sfx this game delivers. Everything from terrified nuts being devoured to moaning and decapitations are well represented. All to a fantastic musical score.
• Presentation: 10.0 - PopCap does it again. I honestly cannot think of a negative thing to say and must go against my “nothing is perfect” mentality. Plus I can type whatever number I damn well please!!!

• Zombieism: 9.7 - The style and diversity of zombies inhabiting this world is terrific. They come at you in every way you can imagine, as well as ways you should have to save your brain. Again you should probably read The Zombie Survival Guide. It kicks my last reviewed game‘s Zombieism score in the teeth. Zombie scuba divers, dolphin jockeys, miners, and mecha zombies = AWESOME!

• Overall: 9.6 – Plants vs Zombies is filled with loads of zombie dominating fun and I highly recommend it. If you have already played it on PC then you aren’t missing anything besides the portability. Imagine sitting on the bus, your friend’s lap, or in my case often the toilet. At your disposal, a plethora of deadly flora and very deserving zombies.

How do I know they are deserving? If you really have to ask me why zombies are deserving of peas and cabbage in their face until point of death, and then probably a few more just to make sure, “Double Tap”, then you are likely a zombie yourself. A zombie that has evolved beyond the confines of single thought brain temptation and decided to browse the internets, find my site, and realize the threat that is upon you. Upon completion of this sentence you will likely go on a plant murdering rampage, but instead take this chance to browse more of my blog, leave some comments, and maybe tell your friends about it. I like zombies!

Who: Developed by Vince McDonnell, and Published by the Playforge (the forgers of playtime?)

What: Farming simulation

Where: Fantasy Zombie World

When: Available now in the app store for *”Free”…
* item may not be that free

Why: Because everyone can find a strange monotonous addiction to virtual farming.

Plowing on the farm.

I’ve talked about the whole “free to play” model before and have seen it as mostly a good thing. This game seems to abuse that model slightly. A good “free to play” game will allow you to play indefinitely, but have sparkles, frosting, shiny things, and time saving bonuses behind cash walls. This allows everyone, casual and invested, to play on the same field while the invested players can stand out with their elite visual splendor and lower time investment. What I don’t like is when a game is completely blocked by a cash wall hidden in the game. If they were going to be honest they would have made this game a “Lite” version, allowing you to play up until level 10, and then letting you mess around all you want up to that point. Instead you get what seems to be a full game, that punches you in the face and shakes you down for money after level 10.

Zombie Farm plays much like it’s insanely successful big brothers Farm Town, Farmville, Aquarium Love, Monkey Tacos, and many others that plague Facebook news. Where is the Block All Applications button? The biggest difference, and selling point for anyone who has vowed to avoid the Facebook siblings are the zombies. Zombies are cool and zombies have been concept gold for a decade or so and I predict they will be for some time to come. Zombies are a great way of letting people destroy humans without feeling any kind of humane remorse, because well, they are already dead. Zombie Farm’s undead can be used to attack neighboring farms. This mode plays  like a castle defense game, but you are on the attacking end. You must kill all the farmhands and eventually the farm master. While you fight the farmhands the farm master is chucking all kinds of stuff at your attacking force. The game mechanic is fun enough, but the major payoff is the chance of getting a brain, which allows you to unlock some of the higher level items. Brains are hard to come buy unless you want to drop real money on them.

The game is packed with plants like tomatoes, potatoes, and venus flytraps. Like the Facebook predecessors, each crop has it’s own grow time, which keeps you coming back to harvest, make some coin, and then replant or upgrade to something that yields more coin. The zombies work in much the same way. There are five main types of zombies: balanced, tough, nimble, fast, strong, and  the fertilizers. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages when attacking farms. The fertilizers will run around your farm improving yields on all crops; plant and zombie.

There is an added level of depth present in this game that makes it a bit more than just a copy of other popular farm games. Placing specific crops around your zombie crops adds special bonuses to their stats like attack, speed, and defense. This requires you to do a bit of planning when planting because the zombies must be harvested before the crop to get the desired effect.

Quantitative Review:

• Gameplay: 7.6 - Nothing new to the genre besides the small addition of strategic depth. The game still gets very repetitive and click heavy for no apparent reason but to take time. These games could easily let you select large regions instead of individual squares. Maybe I’m just not meant to be a farmer. Unlocking new zombies is fun but it comes at a price. Going beyond green zombies will require you to buy a BLUE gravestone, which unlocks the BLUE zombies. These are required for the battles after lvl 10 where the farmhands are armed with muscles and axes. Battles after level 10 are impossible to win, requiring you to spend $0.99 for the blue gravestone.  The game suffers greatly from click inaccuracy, which is an issue on iPhone games in general and the farming games on Facebook. When these issues combine it gets pretty painful. This coupled with performance issues when zoomed in on a lot of crops makes the game unplayable sometimes. Sadly this is becoming common with games on the inferior 3G processor. Thanks for segregating the market Apple.

Invading with a Cyborg Tomato zombie!

• Visuals: 8.1 - General crops and players look a lot like those present in Facebook farming games. Some of the more unique crops and zombies are pretty cool looking. Cyborg zombies are pretty bad ass.
• Sound: 8.3 - The music is very “farm-like” and thrown vegetables make a comic squishing sound. Hungry, battle craving zombies walk around saying “Brains” in a humorous voice that filled me with glee.
• Presentation: 6.8 - The presentation of this game seemed to irritate me from the beginning. Every single time you start the game it asks you if you would like to connect to Facebook. My account is already plagued with unstoppable, spam-like updates on pointless shit that other people have clicked on that I refused to ever allow the game to interface with Facebook in any way. Asking me once, every 5th time, or having an option in the settings would be welcomed, but being asked EVERY TIME was very irritating. Once the game loads up you get harassed by several other pop ups telling you to spend money on brains, give you a minuscule coin prize, and tell you AGAIN that connecting to Facebook could give you better prizes. Once you finish a battle, and I believe after you reach certain levels it makes sure to remind you to spend some real money to get better zombies, and buy some brains. All this does is help create some kind of pathetic money machine that I just don’t want to be a part of. There are too many less mundane ways to have fun for free.

You will see this a lot unless you spend some real money.

• Zombieism: 8.4 - Zombie Farm represents it’s name pretty well. I was happy with the game’s visual depiction and variation in zombies. The “ZomBumpkin” was a bit confusing at first, because it’s crazy under-bite almost looked like a third arm or erupted chest burster. During battles your zombie army will get distracted by thoughts of rainbows, candy, and butterflies. That’s pretty amusing.

• Overall: 7.8 - I appreciate the zombie take on the whole farming genre, but the drive for money could have been masked a bit better. Zombie Farm seemed a bit too much like a prostitute that was lacking in it’s own ability, so it decided to jump on the massive zombie bandwagon. I’m not sure what a cheap zombie prostitute looks like, but I know I’ve spent enough time with one. I gave it $0.99 and in return got some more fodder for this review and that seems good enough for me. Although if you aren’t one of the tens of millions that have been sucked unknowingly into a farming game on Facebook you could find some enjoyment in this zombie flavored rendition.

I’m currently working on the pants and things are starting to come together overall. The folds in jeans seem to be a bit more random, because of the stiffness of denim. The fabric doesn’t quite follow the law of gravity as well. Heavier and softer materials tend to wrinkle and fold in the direction of the tension that is on it. Jeans will bulk up and fortify itself against gravity’s weak force, creating some interesting wrinkles.

WIP Male Figure

I have very little experience with modeling clothes in zBrush. I’ve studied the way it behaves before for an old project, but that was all done in Maya. This has still been a fairly new venture. I took a series of pictures, referencing myself in a hooded jacket, as well as cruising the Pixologic galleries for references and have gotten started. There are some nice starting brushes offered over at www.selwy.com, as well as a tutorial on how he created his masterpiece. His cloth is much thinner and lighter than mine, but the brushes have provided a great start to the process.

There are only a couple different cloth weights on this character, but the jacket is proving to be a fun challenge. The hood draped behind him, which I haven’t done much to yet, and his left sleeve that’s rolled up above his elbow has forced me to take a close look at the behavior of heavy fabric.

I didn’t get to his right side or back yet, but I think I have a good jumping point for his sleeve.  I also made some tweaks to the face, closing the mouth and bulking up the lips.

WIP of Hero's clothes.

Here is a head I’ve been working on in zBrush. I’ve been doing a lot of anatomical study of the structures of the skull, and the muscles that control the face.

I feel I’m getting close to having the basic form down, but the mouth is still bothering me. Maybe I need to close it up or something. Next steps will be to add some wrinkles and impurities that break symmetry and make it a bit more interesting to look at, because now it’s mainly a study model. I’ll also work on the neck down to the chest.

If you have any comments or feedback feel free to submit below!

Male head done in zbrush. wip