Conclusion

To conclude - I'm actually really pleased with my product and it was a lot of fun to do. I did run into a few problems but nothing major and nothing that stopped me from completing the project. The things I really enjoyed in this project were: the new feature panel loops, it's probably the most powerful tool I've personally used within ZBrush and I'm so happy I used it even though I made a mistake with it regarding the pose and composing the renders within Photoshop, I've used Photoshop for quite a number of years so I feel at home whenever I use it and enjoy it quite thoroughly. The parts I didn't enjoy, well, actually there's nothing. A couple of things really did frustrate me like my problems I encountered when trying to pose but it was actually quite enjoyable trying to figure out how to fix the problems and move on with my work. Even when I completely changed my character it was actually quite exciting trying something different and because this is something I enjoy, work didn't feel like work and it all went very fast.

If I had another chance I'd definitely amend my biggest mistake during this project and pose as early on as I possibly could, preferably right after I had finished the major symmetrical work so that I could make asymmetrical poses and really make it interesting. Also in regards to the final image I feel I could have put a lot more effort into the background and given it some character and life. Although I felt with the pose I had to work with the background wouldn't help it much, besides I feel the stars really correlate well with the blue shiny armour I had given my character. I might also move off from humans - every character or face or bust I've done in ZBrush have all been human, I feel like I'm ready to move on from that and experiment with some alien type characters or just variations of the basic humanoid anatomy. 

All in all, this project has by far been the most fun for me to complete in the entire two years I've had at college - obviously because we got to choose exactly what we wanted to do, and since being introduced to ZBrush, I knew that I would have to use this program during this project. I'm pleased with my decisions and surprisingly happy with the result of the final image.


In regards to my schedule I'm actually a slight bit ahead of it, so even though you could say I wasted a little over two weeks, because of how much I enjoyed this work I got everything done in a small time scale and on time. This being this sixth week I've had nothing to do besides add images to this blog and publish all the pages!

I also completed everything stated on my project brief -

It's finished!

It's finally done so let's go over how I put together my renders in order to finish the image.

First of all I just wanted a basic background so I found a stock image of the galaxy and just placed it in different positions, in the exclusion layer mode. Then I used Gaussian blur so that it wouldn't take your attention away from the render. 

Next I added in my main render and deleted all of the background, this was easy because I used the magic wand on the mask render to get a silhouette to remove it. To get the shadow I simply duplicated the layer, filled it in black, added the blur and used the transform tool to first change the perspective of it, then to skew it, and finally to drop the vertical size.

Next I added an adjustment layer - selective colour just to increase the blacks to give it a little stronger depth, then just added a clipping mask to connect it to my main render.

I found a stock image of metal rust and decided to use that as a clipping mask on top of my main render.

Using the render I made earlier I erased all the areas I didn't want to have stand out and set that layer mode on darken. I then added an adjustment mask, brightness and contrast and increased them both to the max and finally made it a clipping mask.

The difference was quite subtle but I liked it a lot more as opposed to something that really stood out too much.

After that I added in the reflective map render and simply put it on overlay so that it isn't too noticeable, but because of the black background it made everything else darker so again I just clipped on a brightness/contract adjustment mask onto it.

and it is finally complete, the last steps I took were simply sharpening the entire image by making a new layer  and applying the image on it, and then slightly adjusted the levels. Finally added my name in the corner and it is done!

Here is the final layer composition in Photoshop.

and here is my completed render -

Additionally, I'm on time accordingly to my schedule so I haven't lost any time!

Posing and render time!

So I can't have my character looking like he's midway of doing star jumps so I have to pose him. I've had huge troubles with this and found a big mistake I made really early on during the project.
I had looked into rigging the character with zspheres using the transpose master tool and I did so successfully however when it came to posing which should have been the easy bit - because I had such a high polygon count whenever I moved a bone or joint it actually took around 30 seconds to react and it wouldn't even move as much as I wanted it to. I immediately realised I should've posed this character way earlier on as it is so easy using rigging in ZBrush. The mistake I made was all the way back when I was using panel loops, because panel loops requires you to have no subdivisions, naturally I wanted the highest subdivision so I was forced to delete lower subdivisions and because of that there was no going back but this is something I'll always keep in mind if I have to use panel loops for something I will render in the future
So how I actually posed the character was awkward, I actually merged all the subtools in my project and used the transpose tool but for very basic movements and nothing too drastic although I really wanted to completely move him around and give him a cool pose. 
This is the result of the pose, with his head lowered, arms lowered and legs moved out slightly.
These are all the images of the materials I have rendered out to use for my final image.

This render will be used to focus on the smaller panel loops like abdominal's to give it the shiny blue look I want

This render will be used as a reflection map just so that his armour has a little extra detail in it

This render will be used a depth map

This render will be used a mask

This is my main render which I will use all the other renders to compose with.

Alterations

It's almost time for the rendering process so I thought I'd go back to the model and see if there was actually anything I wanted to change, and I did find quite a few things.
This is my completed model with some finer details in it as well as a little more variation in the texturing.

FRONT ORTHOGRAPHIC

BACK ORTHOGRAPHIC

SIDE ORTHOGRAPHIC

Probably the most noticeable difference is that the smaller panel loops have been given a slight hint of blue just to make it a little more interesting but as I've mentioned before it will all look different in the render. Another thing which you may not notice because it is unrendered is the finer details I put into the abdominal's and the hexagon chest pieces but I feel every small detail will add up in the end. Last but not least I downloaded a insert mesh brush of a cog of some sort and just placed it where I felt it fit.

Progress!

Once I had panel looped the entire body a large part of my modelling was actually done, it was only the texturing and rendering which I had to do. 
I've never rendered a model and then proceeded to compose it in Photoshop using several renders so this is the part of the project I'm most worried about, but I'm confident I'll be happy with whatever I make as it is my first time. 
This is the final model

Although the entire armour has the same texture this will be changing as I move forward with renders and Photoshop  for now it is fine. The skin also is quite irrelevant since it all can be altered and messed around with in Photoshop, however the skin is just painted with a skin material I got from the pixologic website.
Now for some render tests to see how this will actually pan out in the long run.

From the test BPR renders I really am pleased with the results - especially with the result of the fiber mesh. I really dislike the eyelashes, in fact I couldn't make realistic looking ones even after trying for quite a while, so I'll probably just remove them all together since you won't even see them in the final render. 

Polygroups, polygroups, and even more polygroups.

For this part of my modelling process all I had to do was make shapes, sounds simple and it is, except it is pretty long winded. By using my tablet and the mask pen brush with symmetry on I just started to mask bits out, CTRL+W to make mask a polygroup then CTRL-SHIFT-CLICK the polygroup I had just made to hide it so that I wouldn't accidently overlap polygroups. I did this for the entire body, and since I had already made a body mesh it was easy to follow the human anatomy.

FRONT ORTHOGRPAHIC

BACK ORTHOGRAPHIC

SIDE ORTHOGRAPHIC

As you can see all these different colours on the body are separate poly groups which will become different parts of the armour using panel loops.

A problem I did however encounter and maybe a disadvantage to using panel loops rather than extract is that it doesn't actually make a separate subtool for the panel loops you have just made - or I just don't know, and couldn't figure out how. However I did find a work around which was to duplicate the entire subtool once panel looped - and since all the parts that I didn't poly group were in one uniform group I could hide all of that and simply delete hidden and there I'll have a separate subtool with just my panel looped polygroups in it.

This is the actual result of the panel loops with the textured metal material.

This was the end of week 4 and I was right on schedule even after the step back with the entire new character.

Back to where I began; the face!

So although the face or it's features aren't the main attraction of my character I do still need something there. Since in the past I've done many busts and faces I wanted to get through this quickly and not waste time with it. In the final render the face won't be hugely noticeable so I don't need to waste too much time on this.

I wanted a mean, angry look to my character so this was mainly achieved by just lowering the inner brow using the move brush. The rest of the face was almost entirely done with the clay buildup brush, just building and smoothing as I went along, this process was quick and effective and I had a face I was fairly happy with within the hour.
Something wasn't right though, I gave him the angry look, but he wasn't "badass" enough, so this is where Fiber mesh comes in!

and just like that he looked a lot better. Fiber mesh is such a powerful tool in Zbrush and really simple to use. I started with a large mask over the majority of his jaw and chin, then used fiber mesh to give him a little bit of a stubble. Then I focused in and made a mask for a mustache and the hair under your lower lip. I used fiber mesh to make that hair a little more thick and the result was that there was a lot more depth to his facial hair. The eyebrows were done in the same fashion, the only difference is that they a lot more thick.