Observatory Sculpt: Work In Progress 01

After completing the modelling of the building (as seen in my tutorial posts), I had to sculpt it, in order to make it look more like a house, and to give it more character. 

 I started with the small house, as it was the smallest section of the observatory, and meant I could practice the sections quicker.

After unwrapping, I took the house into zBrush. I then split the mesh into its separate pieces so I could sculpt them individually.

I used masking a lot for this building. I masked off a set of wonky bricks on the side of the building. Then I used the inflate tool under the 'Deformation' palette to pull them out of the side of each wall.

This is a quicker and easier way to map out lots of repetition than making each individual brick and projecting the detail down onto a lower poly mesh (this essentially does that for you only twice as fast). This meant that I could spend more time sculpting into each brick to give it its' own character, using various rock brushes I had.

After the bricks were done it was time to move onto the roof. I used a square mask to extract a set of roof panels to add depth and character (like I did in the Archer and Pirate work in progress posts). I will later bolt them down to the main roof.

Next I added a second layer of panels, just in case the first got holes or wore away. This adds to the 'patchwork' effect of a run down house. Then I sculpted a bumpy metal texture in. This was meant to indicate my Pirate         hammering home the metal into panels so they fit snugly to the roof before she bolted them down.

After I'd finished on the roof, I moved down to give the metal base the same treatment. I pulled metal panels out, and sculpted the same metal texture onto them both. Then I had to do the arduous task of placing each and every bolt into place.

Once everything was sculpted, I could then place it back into maya, though at higher poly than the final render will be (as it will mainly be a displacement map that adds all the detail for the render) so I can see the work in progress and feel like i've made progress.