At this point it was a good time to re-mesh my creature before starting to add details (I posed the model and made a few renders) (Fig.06).


I was very careful, detailing the scales and masking them one by one, applying alphas and then sculpting over the top. I also made details inside the mouth. I paid attention to the size of every scale; for example, on the face they are tiny while on the back they are bigger (Fig.07).


Note: I used the alphas just to mark the scales; most of the work was done by hand with the Clay and Slash3 brushes.

The following image shows the model with all the details on it (Fig.08).


For the armor I made simple meshes in 3ds Max (Fig.09) I imported them into ZBrush using the crease Smoothing Groups plugin and then subdivided the mesh.


To start the details I first used the Slash3 brush to make the lines between the pieces of the armor.
I used lots of alphas to make all the little things like the screws, lids, vents etc., and for those bigger shapes I made a masked section and extruded the zone using Inflate in the Deformation panel. Lastly I used the Mallet Fast and Slash brushes for all the damage, scratches and knocks (Fig.10). At this point all the modeling was done.

Texturing

With everything done right now, I proceeded to unwrap the body and pieces using UVLayout to start the texturing process. I baked a Displacement map in ZBrush and applied it into the body mesh. For the hard surface I used a Normal map. The following image shows a render of the body with the V-Ray displacement mode and a simple clay material (Fig.11).

Making the Diffuse for the Body

Previously, I had set up a V-Ray scene with an HDRI light to bake an Ambient Occlusion and I'd also baked a Cavity map from ZBrush. I used these two maps as the base of the diffuse texture. They are on the top of everything. I inserted them in a folder named "AO”. Under this folder I created all the rest of the folders and layers (Fig.12).


The next step was to create the textures for the scales, skin and mouth (I placed them in different folders). I started with the textures for the scales: I created a base layer with a green color, then I used the "brown01” map from the Total Textures V11:R2 – Alien Organics DVD. I repeated it all around the canvas, changed the blend mode to Darker Color, opacity to 45% and applied Color Balance to give it a more greenish look (Fig.13).