My name is Scott Spencer, I am the Digital Art Director at Gentle Giant Studios in Burbank, California. At Gentle Giant I work in various media, creating digital characters for film, broadcast, and games as well as physical sculptures for concept design, promotion, and other applications. Over the past few years I have worked on various projects in both film, broadcast, and games, from the remake of the classic game "Golden Axe" to the Iron Man movie, Pumpkinhead 3, Species 3, as well as several collectible figures and statues sold on the commercial market.
In approaching this book I tried to take lessons from the teachers that most influenced my own education. The two instructors are Bill Johnson and Paul Hudson. Bill Johnson is the owner of Lone Wolf FX, a makeup effects company, and my first employer. From Bill I learned an enormous amount not just about sculpting and creature design but also about thinking and seeing like an artist. I also found in Bill a great friend whom I count as one of my closest to this day.
At Bill's urging I went to art school at The Savannah (Georgia) College of Art and Design. I studied animation with a minor in drawing and anatomy, and I met my second great artistic influence. Paul Hudson teaches perspective, anatomy, and illustration; he is an accomplished illustrator, painter, sculptor, and general Renaissance man. Paul teaches his students by example to be passionate about the continuous process of learning that is to be an artist.
While at SCAD I noticed ZBrush and a light went off for me. Here was a program that would let me do what I do in clay on the computer. I had used Maya and 3ds Max but never felt the same seamlessness as in ZBrush. This software helped me be a better artist; it didn't fight me into a technical corner.
ZBrush can be a hard nut to crack. I wanted to learn this program desperately, so I worked many an endless night, with the help of the user base at ZBrushCentral, which is extremely supportive to artists. I wrote what is now the official ZBrush to Maya ZPipeline guide, available with some of my other tutorials on ZBrush.info.
After SCAD I attended the Florence Academy of Art summer sculpting session, then I found my way to California and to Gentle Giant Studios, which seemed to be one of just a few companies seamlessly blending traditional and digital art techniques. It was a fertile ground for ZBrush. In two short years we had built an entire digital sculpting team from the ground up that included many traditional sculptors who migrated from clay into ZBrush. Today we handle a large volume of projects from toys and collectibles to life-size figures and models for video games and film.
In the years since I started using ZBrush, my passion for the program and the approach of applying sculptural approached to a 3D world has led me to teach a selection of classes at the Gnomon School of Visual Effects as well as release several video tutorials for Gnomonology.com and Pixologic.com.
Along the way I have made a lot of sculptures, taught a lot of classes, and met some amazing artists who continue to inspire and influence me. I have taught at the Weta Workshop in Wellington, New Zealand, where I had the rare opportunity to meet and get to know some of the best creature and character artists in the world. Overall I consider myself very fortunate to have the opportunity to do what I always dreamed of doing—sculpting characters for a living.
I have included several guest artists in this book to help offer more variety in style and approach. Here I would like to introduce you to these amazingly talented individuals who were kind enough to include their thoughts and work in this book.
Cesar Luis Dacol has worked in the film industry for nearly 20 years, having started his career in the makeup effects industry and transitioning to computers effects in the mid-1990s.With a background in anatomy and traditional sculpting, he quickly adapted to the 3D world of computers. For the past five years Cesar has worked primarily as lead and modeling supervisor, contributing to many feature films such as 300, Barnyard, and Fantastic Four.
Ian Joyner has been a character modeler for more than five years. In that time he has worked on everything from feature films, ride films, and critically acclaimed video game cinematics. Ian's work can be seen in many projects including BioShock, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, Hellgate: London, Warhammer: Age of Reckoning and Halo Wars, the feature films Rocky 6 (Rocky Balboa) and James Cameron's Aliens of the Deep, as well as the award-winning short A Gentlemen's Duel by Blur Studio.
Starting in the 1980s in the makeup and special effects industry, Jim has worked with Rick Baker's Cinovation Studios on Gremlins 2, The Nutty Professor, Matinee, Men in Black, and Planet of the Apes. Rick's philosophy of sculptural character design has been a huge influence in Jim's work. The opportunity to design characters under his tutelage was an educational experience that cannot be matched. Previous to the dragon tutorial in this book, Jim has sculpted for designer Miles Teves on a dragon maquette for the film Reign of Fire.
Jim currently works with the team at Gentle Giant Studios. The digital sculpting team has completed work on many of the characters in Sega's "Golden Axe." The digital artists work in close proximity with a brilliant team of traditional sculptors. This is the correct atmosphere to meet the challenge of applying the principles of sculpture in digital modeling.
Zack Petroc has a bachelor of fine arts degree from the Cleveland Institute of Art with a major in sculpture and dual minor in drawing and digital media. Additionally, he studied anatomy at Case School of Medicine and figure sculpture in Florence, Italy. Zack uses his strong design background for both his traditional and digital work. This allows him to contribute to the artistic vision of a project not only during the concept design stage, but also throughout production. Zack is currently working as a freelance art director and concept designer for feature film and video games. He is also a member of the Art Directors Guild Technology Committee.
Alex is founder and director of the Gnomon Workshop and of the Gnomon School of Visual Effects in Hollywood. Having dedicated the last decade to educating students and professional artists around the world, Alex has helped change the face of computer graphics and design education. He has been published in industry magazines, websites, and books, and he has taught courses at several major trade conferences. Alex is president of the Los Angeles Maya Users Group and sits on the Advisory Boards for Highend3D.com and CGsociety. He continues to work on personal and professional projects, recently as a creature development artist on the James Cameron film Avatar. Prior to Gnomon, Alex worked for Alias|Wavefront as a consultant and trainer for studios in the Los Angeles area. Alex is an alumnus of the Art Center College of Design and the University of Pennsylvania.
Ryan Kingslien is a senior Pixoltician at Pixologic, where he works with programmers and artists to fuse art and technology for ZBrush's cutting-edge digital art tools. He studied traditional art at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art and digital art at the Gnomon School of Visual Effects, and earned his degree in liberal arts with a focus on creative writing at Antioch University.
As a leading creator of some of the most useful plug-ins for ZBrush, Svengali can be found at www.zbrushcentral.com.
Fabian Loing is 26 years old. He was born in Jakarta, Indonesia, and is currently a character artist, living in Canada, and working for Pandemic Studios.
In addition, I would like to thank the following for consenting to include images of their work in the book. I hope you find these images as compelling and inspiring as I do.
Alex Oliver, "The Mummy"
Arran Lewis, "ZSphere anatomy"
Magdalena Dadela, "Old woman"
Steve Jubinville, "The darkness monster"
Joel Mongeon, "Studio Wall series"