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Introduction

The idea behind this image was originally conceived back in 2005 and I named it Brothers In Blood (Fig.01).


Brothers In Blood II was created for Sol90 Publishing. They needed Carnotaurus Sastrei Diorama dinosaurs, which was a perfect opportunity for me to revisit one of my old creations and improve upon it. It was an interesting creative experience for me as I was able to see just how much I've evolved, and how the software I use has as well, during little less than a seven year time span.

In this Making Of you will be given an insight into the methods I used to create one of my latest paleo-themed illustrations (Fig.02).

Modeling

Unlike the original image, where I used 3ds Max and a box modeling method, these new Carnotaurus were sculpted using ZBrush 4R2. I don't even want to start comparing these two modeling methods. Box modeling was fun, but it has become outdated, especially if you're building organic objects. Over time, ZBrush and Mudbox have become the alpha tools for modeling anything from organic, over hard surface to architectural models. These tools enable artists to flesh-out their visions quickly and accurately, without having to get too techy in the process of creation. It is almost as intuitive and easy to get as a real life clay modeling.

In this illustration you have two dinosaur species. The Diplodocus dinosaur in the background was created before for Eon Software as a 3D asset. I just re-used that model and reposed/aligned them into big herd moving away into the distance. So in this section I'm going to focus on how I modeled the Carnotaurus. After all, he is the star of this illustration!

The Carnotaurus model was made completely in ZBrush. In some of my previous modeling projects I would go to 3ds Max and make a rough low poly mesh. Nowadays I'm doing all the modeling work inside ZBrush, although on rare occasions I still switch to 3ds Max to get some modeling done there.

The first step was a ZSphere basic model (Fig.03). As soon as the dinosaur's rough shape was complete, the ZSphere shape was turned into a polymesh object.