HMC #22: Classic Self Portrait: Tim Mrozek

#1

Hello all, well, I’ve been working on characters a lot lately and I’ve been digging into ZBrush so I’m pretty excited to jump on board for this challenge. It’s been tough narrowing it down and I have been sitting in front of my computer struggling to pick which to use. I had narrowed it down to Laocoon and His Sons by Agesander, Athenodoros and Polydorus
Agesander, Athenodoros and Polydorus, and The Death of Marat by David. I settled on The Death of Marat because I feel like it’s a more realistic that I could finish this piece, and because I’ve noticed not many people are using paintings as their reference so figured I would go that route. I’ve also just always loved the work of David and this has been one of my favorites for awhile.

Here it is by the way. Now the question is, do I cut my hair and/or shave my beard of just add those elements to the portrait.

#2

Cool, just found this image too, another interpretation by another artist nearly 100 years later. Never knew this existed. Artist was Paul-Jacques-Aime Baudry

Ok, time to get crackin on a self portrait of myself as a murder victim. The history of this painting is pretty interesting so if anyone is interested check it out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_Marat

#3

i love that painting. i don’t think you should change yourself for the challenge, unless you really want to. i’ve come to think of you as your avatar :stuck_out_tongue:

#4

Well, my hair has gotten significantly longer since, however, I’ve not been without beard for years now so that has to stay.

#5

wow the second representation’s marvelous :slight_smile: [yes I love those stripy dresses]… David’s painting is a true classic and would definitely be very challenging. I’m also a real fan of David - especially his painting of the Lavoisiers [the detail there always blows me away]. Best of luck with Marat!

#6

Ha, well, if I have time perhaps I’ll add the murderer in her striped dress. That’s the best thing about 3D, the limitless amounts of points of view. I plan to try to make this viewable from all angles. I see a lot of 2D paintings represented in 3D that can only be viewed from one angle. And yes, I’ve been a huge fan of the immense attention to detail by David ever since my wonderful history of 18th century French art class a few years back. It ended up being half a history of David class.

On another note, decided to post my current progress, just setting up the scene to try to get a feel for exactly how this 2D image translates to 3D. NOt much done yet but, eh, whatever, here it is. Wanted to do more but had to watch Top Chef.

#7

Well, a little bit of progress. Been a busy weekend. Should be able to put in some serious effort tomorrow but for now, to keep me going and to update, here is my mug! and an early wire of my basemesh for my face (still very WIP)


#8

I have basically finished my base mesh for my face. My ears will be covered by cloth most likely (unless I change the image a bit) but I had to torture myself and make ears again. I’m pretty happy with them, they’re simple but they are clean and all quads. Also tweaked a good bit. I know it’s hard to tell from the last update to this one because I took a sneaky shot of my last wireframe, where it was harder to tell that the cheeks were too deflated and the the lips were all off. Anyway, it’s not perfect but I’ll use zbrush for that. Onto the body.


#9

Apparently twitpic isn’t good for hosting images. They all seem to disappear from my thread 2 minutes after I post.

#10

Good start, I was going to comment about the mouth being off, but then I realized that you are bringing it into zbrush! duh. The shape of the tub is great. Are you going to add claw feet to the tub? I don’t know if that was the time period, but they are fun.

#11

may I recommend photobucket?
It allows you to create multiple albums, so you could create an album for every challenge u enter :slight_smile:

http://www.photobucket.com

-Rage

#12

good progress Tim :slight_smile: photobucket doesn’t allow any nudity though - so a hint for future projects, they do take down 3d nudes too

#13

i find www.imageshack.us to be the best for me for image hosting, i’ve used it for years

#14

Thanks for the tips guys. I’m actually already using photobucket for another project I’ve got going on. Forgot about it’s gallery’s so I might switch over to that. Also, I had an old imageshack account so if photobucket considers a nude male upper torso to be offensive I have that as a back-up.

#15

My personal favorite is Flickr.com, you can create sets and collections and directly connect to the farm files too.

#16

Well, the week has turned out to be a great deal more busy than I would have hoped and I haven’t gotten as much done as I had hoped. But I guess that’s probably the story with everyone. Well, anyway, I’ve roughed in the body and have started to sculpt in zbrush. Currently I’m just starting to add a bit of detail to the face. Can’t really tell if it looks like me. I’m so used to seeing the beard and hair. Oh well, it’s shaping up in one way or another. Please Crit away. I think i’ve been looking at it, and pictures of my face too long to tell.

#17

Hi all, not a ton of progress, but the lips were really bugging me on that last post so I had to save myself by posting an update. Still having issues with the lips. Just hard to see my jaw and lips with this beard but I bought a tiny mirror that is helping. Anyway, here is where I currently am. I also think I got the general shape of the face and underlying bones much closer to my real face. Moving on to blocking in the body/muscles (already have a base built)

#18

Ok, I promise, last update of the face for a long time. I just still had issues with what I posted. I guess I always will because no one ever feels their work is finished, but I’m moving onto the scene next. Roughed in a body too but it’s got some issues with proportion so I’ll post that later.

#19

Starting to block in my composition in Z-Brush. I am pretty new to Z-brush and right now I’m finding all of their transpose/translation,scale,rotate controls to be awkward and difficult for precision but hopefully I’ll get it down. So far the hardest has just been trying to start posing my character/myself since I built the body in a pretty standard T-pose that required a lot of altering to get him into the tub. Anyway, I think it’s pretty obvious that I haven’t quite gotten the character in there all the way yet, but I just wanted to post a WIP anyway since I started to build up the cloth and stuff in the scene.

Any comments, crit or suggestions are always welcome.

#20

Any time you transpose in ZBrush it creates an area around the spot you moved that looks like artifacts or antialiasing, best way I can describe it. From there you smooth out the results but to make it easier on yourself decide on the pose early and transpose at low low rez. This way you can have the shape in place before you start sculpting.

Tip if you don’t already know it. Create your mask and then click once on the mask to smooth it. Makes the transitions much uh… smoother. :smiley:

The pieces are coming together nicely, keep it up.