STEP BY STEP
BASIC ZSPHERES FOR CREATURES
01 START A ZSPHERE MODEL
Go to Tool and look for the red sphere, which is the Zsphere tool. New Zspheres always start with a single red sphere, and you simply add more spheres to it. Make sure you’re in Edit mode (‘T’ is the keyboard shortcut for that), and hit ‘X’ first to create symmetrically, which is useful for creatures. Next you’ll want to add a sphere at the front and another one at the back. You have the ability to move, rotate, and scale all the Zspheres and connecting lines.
02 ADD JOINTS FOR THE BODY
You can quickly refine the basic anatomy of your creature. Add a sphere everywhere you want a joint such as the shoulder, elbow, knee and so on. Move the end sphere around and don’t forget that you can rotate any sphere to affect the spheres and connecting lines below it in the chain. Build up the entire anatomy in this way, but don’t try to add any detail such as eyes or teeth.
03 GET IT CORRECT NOW
The important thing to remember is that this is your armature and it’s what you’ll sculpt on, so the more accurate this is the better your model will be. This is the best time to get the length of the limbs right. Don’t worry about the volume of muscles or elements like the belly area, just focus on getting the full anatomy scale correct from nose to tail. Use ‘A’ to see a preview of your model as geometry.
04 MOVE TO GEOMETRY
Once you have the full body laid out you can convert it to geometry to sculpt on. Look in the Tool panel for Adaptive Skin. Here you can play with a few settings to improve the look of the model you’re about to create. The basic settings are fine, so just hit Make Adaptive Skin and a new model will appear in the Tool menu. This is your true geometry and can no longer be manipulated as a Zsphere model. You can now use the normal sculpting tools to work this model into your full design.