Friday, August 22nd, 2014 Posted by Jim Thacker

Gnomon ships superheroic character design training

The Gnomon Workshop has released a new two-hour class from Marvel character artist Josh Herman, setting out an efficient, production-ready workflow for creating a superheroic character: in this case, the Silver Surfer.

A fast, fluid design process using ZBrush, Maya and KeyShot
In 3D Character Design: Sculpt, Model, Render, Josh explores the process of redesigning an iconic character while keeping the original at the heart of the design.

The process starts in ZBrush to block in the overall form, moving to KeyShot and Photoshop to quickly define the look of the character. The sculpt is then retopologised in Maya to create clean, animatable geometry.

KeyShot is also used to generate presentation renders, with final details added in Photoshop.

About the artist
Josh Herman studied at the Gnomon School of Visual Effects, going on to work at Legacy Effects on projects such as Real Steel, The Amazing Spider-Man, Total Recall and The Avengers on graduation.

He also worked for Naughty Dog on Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception, and now at Marvel Studios on films such as Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World, Captain America: The Winter Solider and Guardians of the Galaxy.

Pricing and availability
3D Character Design: Sculpt, Model, Render is available from The Gnomon Workshop’s online store, price $49. The video is currently available as a digital download; a DVD release will follow shortly.

Buy 3D Character Design: Sculpt, Model, Render from The Gnomon Workshop’s online store

Read our recent interview with Josh, in which he discusses his character sculpting workflow

Full disclosure: CG Channel is owned by the Gnomon School of Visual Effects.