Head Model

Beauty Shots

It's been a while since I opened ZBrush, so I struggled to get back into my usual workflow. However, once I got the hang of it, I was able to sculpt a head smoothly. My goal here was to achieve really sharp edges for the facial features, inspired by Arcane. I initially had a human reference and wanted to stylize the model, but it ended up looking more realistic than I had liked. Working off a drawn concept in the style I was trying to achieve would help next time. I found the "hPolish" brush worked really nicely in chiseling out the sharp features I wanted.

I'd like to learn more about the render settings in ZBrush because I've been having trouble getting the render to look nice and not stray too much from its preview appearance. I adjusted some of the shadow properties to my liking by applying a slight blur filter using BPR filters, which reduced some unwanted shadows. 

Overall, I am pretty happy with the sculpt and would like to challenge myself next time by creating a more stylized character.

Final Render

Update (08/26/2025):

Added some hand-painted textures!

Color Render

I started with a sphere shape and only appended extra shapes for the ears, neck, eyes, and hair. Using the inflate brush to quickly create the curves of the face, such as the nose and mouth. I used the "Damian Standard" brush for deep creases, which was easier to achieve when working on a higher-poly model.

It was simpler to achieve my desired look on large surface areas, such as the nose and cheekbones, so I spent most of my time in my first pass getting those features right. For the mouth and eyes, I focused on getting the general proportions and shapes right before going to high poly and adding some details like his creases (my reference had really deep eyelid folds, and it proved to be challenging to obtain that feeling with my model). Below is my low-poly model before I merged the subtools together.

First Pass