This is the result of the last ZBrush workshop I did with 5 other guys. It has been a 5-6 hours workshop online (just for french sorry!). Started from ZSpheres II, then Sketched, sculpted, retopologized, sculpted again and then, the pose.
It need more work, but I will work again on the body itself in its T pose to refine some parts (arms, face, legs, etc.)
If you miss that news these last days, The Gnomon Workshop, the famous Art School in Los Angeles just open a new Subscription section on their website, which give the access to all their video training available in DVD.
This is a review of this offer and let’s be direct and simple, this is a fabulous one (the offer 
)!
The Gnomon Workshop offers three different plans at, as you guess, different prices.
To preview the content of each plan, you can browse in their content navigator and discover what are they offering for each section, or chose by software / media. And for each video, you can view the details by being forwarded to the web page of the DVD description. One of my “negative” comment (I have to find some of them!!) is that you need to go out of the webpage to view the details. A couple of screenshots and a short summary may have been better. The content listing for each plan is available in the last tab, with the title of each DVD and a link to its description.
After choosing your plan, let’s start watching… well, let’s find where to start! So much learning material in so many different fields. This is the very good point of this Subscriptions: tons and tons of content ready to be watched.
On the left, the software or category of content, and on the right, the listing of the titles available. Clicking on the title display the chapters to watch.
All the videos are done by the best artists in the industry, and these videos are really targeted for the artists: for the artists by the artists. I already own several Gnomon DVDs and for someone like me, they are excellent and I’ve never been disappointed by the training. I can’t judge all the material training because I need to watch a lot more, but my first feedback is very positive.
My first choice was the last videos of Ryan Kingslien, dedicated to the ZSpheres II and ZSketch. I won’t comment the video here, I will do a dedicated post for this training.
The quality of the video was very good with a crystal clear sound and the streaming speed was very fast for me, who is located in France, far from their US servers. Then, instead of taking a look at the website for a description, I can just pick a video and start watching a random chapter to have a first feedback about the content.
You can switch to full screen view at anytime, pause, move to a specific position in the timeline without any troubles. My other negative comment is that you can’t download a training for an offline viewing (when I’m in the train..) but well, it’s an “-online- training subscriptions”! The DVDs are here for this purpose
The online player (Flash based) with the last Ryan Kingslien training. Click to enlarge for a 100% size.
Conclusion
One of the best training school/company which offer all its content for$499/year, with the best artists teaching you the most important software and medias. Where is the daylight robbery? There is not!
If you need to learn then, it’s the best deal available! Tons and tons of content to learn, to improve your skills, what else?
Sorry for the short review, I have to go watching more training!
Pros:
Cons (it’s to say there is cons…):
KURV has organized several webinar (live presentation) and several of them have been/are dedicated to ZBrush. Yesterday night was the first one of a series of three, presented by the artist Leigh Bamforth. The purpose is to create an Orc with ZBrush 3.5 with some of its new features like ZSpheres II. You can find more information on the KURV Website.
This is my review of the first session, “Creature sculpting with ZSpheres II” (and ZSketch):
During 20 minutes, Leigh built a ZSphere Skeleton which will support the strip of ZSpheres from ZSketch. The shape of the model created was very close to the final model. The purpose is to do easy deformation later on the ZSketch by editing the ZSphere skeleton.
Leigh also show an interesting way to build the foot of the Orc. I never thought of that way to do so as I always thought of a classical hierarchy, but now, it’s no more a restriction because of ZSketch. Good to remember for my own work.
The finished ZSphere Skeleton
When the ZSphere skeleton has been finished, Leigh start to sketch the model by small strip of ZSphere which are close to what the muscle would be positioned on a real Orc. Even if the muscle structure is not anatomically perfect, it allows the ZBrush users to discover the muscle structure apply on a humanoid model. Slowly, the “look & feel” of the model is visible and we can imagine its final form.
The ZSketch of the body almost done.
To build the head, Leigh loaded a previously made skull as a SubTool, and then, use it as a support to build the head. This is not a trick, but I think a lot of users may not be aware of this way to create their model.
In the same direction, Leigh refine it’s ZSphere skeleton to fit it to the added skull/head, and then, added the support for the hears. This is something that a lot of users have to know! Thanks Leigh!
The Skull added as a SubTool and then, used as a support for the sketching.
The edition of the ZSphere skeleton while doing the ZSketch of the head.
Most of the ZSketch tools has been shown, and also the classical Move Tool to do local deformations. It has been a good demonstration of which kind of result you can do directly with ZSketch.
At the end of the shape sketching part, Leigh switch to an adaptive skin and start sculpting the model in a more “traditional” way: using the Move tool to change the global shape and refine locally some parts (like the jaws, ears, etc…), the Clay finish brush (his favorite one, well, same for me!) to add some extra details and in after several minutes, the model was done (without the details, next session).
The final sculpted model, after 1h50 of work (excluding the skull).
The last part was the usual session of Questions & Answers. I had to shut down at the end of the Q&A session because of a scheduled meeting at work, then perhaps I missed one or two questions.
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To conclude, this presentation was interesting for all the new comers to ZBrush 3.5 as it shown at this stage (1st webinar), a good way to build from scratch a model and generating an accurate shape before moving the the detail stage. Leigh did a good sculpt in less than 1h50, which is a good timing for a full body and show some nice tricks. Everybody had something to learn and I was happy to watch it and I’m waiting for the two others webinar.
My two small negative comments are that Leigh don’t speak enough on some parts (but it’s perhaps because I talk too much when I do webinars!) and the other point is the quality of the sound when Leigh was speaking: it was like speaking on a distant microphone, then, for a non native english speaker like me, I had to focus a lot to understand. Wes (from KURV) voice was perfectly clear, it was definitly not a problem of bandwidth (26 Mbits at home). This is only minor points which doesn’t remove the quality of the work and presentation !
Note: I will try to do the review of the two next webinar (next couple of Saturdays)
This is something that you don’t have to miss! Gnomon just announced their new online Master Classes!
During two weeks, the best artists of the 2D/3D/VFX industry will do a 2-3 hours online training, with various subjects like:
The cost is only $295 for the 16 classes which is around $18 per class! More information on the Gnomon website.
I will do my best to follow these Master Classes!
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