Then the last thing I did in ZBrush was to take a screen grab of the alpha depth of the canvas (Fig.18) which I could use with the Lens Blur filter in Photoshop to create a slight depth of field effect.

For the background, I used 3DTotal Textures of a sky and trees (Fig.19), along with a separate corn field image which I blurred quite a lot.

After compositing all the lighting passes and background together in Photoshop, I merged all the layers together (Fig.20). At this point I thought I could use still more dirt on some areas, so I used the 3DTotal dirt textures on another separate layer in Photoshop to create some lighter dirty areas (Fig.21 – 22). I then did some colour correction and used the smear tool to create the frayed straw effect on the hat. A quick but slight darkening of the areas around the edges helped to add a bit of focus to the centre of the image (Fig.23).





I've got to say that, after this was finished, I was extremely impressed with the capability of ZBrush for creating illustrations. And it was done without using UVs, which can save a lot of valuable time. I'm pleased to share my technique with you all and I hope you can use some of the information presented in this article to create some great art in ZBrush!