The Concept:

There was no real concept. In the beginning, the idea came from a speed work on a French forum: http://www.mayalounge.com. We had to make Gollum’s head. So I started with this and, because this idea was cool, I decided to do a portrait of the entire Gollum…

So I searched images on the web and I found many references, like this one:

The Modelling:

Then I started with the modelling.

As I said, I started the work on the head with a mesh made by Cédric Lepiller , administrator of the mayalounge forum.

Then I imported this head into ZBrush 3.1 and I started to sculpt.

First, I tweaked with the move tool and then I sculpted with the standard brush. Finally, the details were made with the different alphas included in the software and with my personal alphas found on the web. Quickly, I had a first version of the head:

For the body, I started with the creation of a base mesh in Modo:

Then I imported it into ZBrush, then tweaked and sculpted it. I re-meshed it to obtain an optimised wire. I also did the same for the head.

To do this, I used the remesh tool in ZBrush. The value of this tool is the ability to keep the highest level of subdivision, therefore keeping the work already done.

The operation of the tool is fairly simple: just select a zsphere, then in the rigging tab select the mesh, and then simply click on edit topology and projection, respectively, in the topology and Projection tabs.

Finally, I put it in good position using the great tool, Transpose (this tool allows you to test different positions and to do without the rigging and skinning stage, unnecessary for a still image):