My attempt on Bruno Mars 3d portrait. Likeness is a challenge for me but I feel that this piece was a breakthrough.
There was also a lesson in reference gathering on my part here. The references I gathered were abit inconsistent in his age so it got abit tricky. it looks like Bruno but at the same time not really.
My biggest mistake was that I didn't spend more time on the likeness during the sculpting stage. So alot of pushing and pulling was done near the end of look dev. Lesson for next time.
The quarter views got alot closer to looking like Bruno. One of the biggest things I learned in the process was taking breaks. Letting my eyes rest after hours of comparing my 3d model to references.
The base model was the 2nd subdivision level exported from ZBrush. I wanted to keep as much form in the base model as I could for high res rendering.
The retopology was done in Blender. I've learned that if I keep the eye bags(area) separated from the eye lids I can later then sculpt in the eye bags so they actually sit on top of the eyelids.
Skin texture maps.
Eye texture maps.
For rendering I wanted to do high res shots in Blender. So the rest of the look dev stage was in Blender 3.3.
The eyes were a big step up for me in this project. The details were sculpted in ZBrush which I've always done, but the trick I learned here was the wetness setup and texture setup by just creating a soft mask on the edges of the wetness mesh.
For the hair I used a drawn curve that gives the curls a better look and also acts as a guide. Blender 3.3 new hair system was used for eyebrows and eyelashes. Using Geo nodes to edit look and amount.
Texturing in Substance Painter.
Video showcases the model and elements on the model.
My attempt on Bruno Mars 3d portrait. My biggest challenge here was getting the likeness down which I should've spent more time on during the sculpting stage. Alot of pushing and pulling was done here at the same time as I was texturing and grooming. This is the first 3d portrait I've pushed past the sculpting stage through the 3d pipeline, but I've definitely learned from some mistakes in this one. Looking forward to doing more 3d portraits. The head model and eyes were sculpted in Zbrush and retopologized in Blender. The aviator shades were modeled in Blender as well as the earring piece and necklace. The only pieces that I pulled from online were the teeth and shirt. For these items I didn't want to spend time on as I wanted to focus on the likeness more. Especially the most visible features.
