Sculting the crosses in Zbrush.

After taking a closer look at the crosses' references that I have chosen, I have realized that those were not accurate to the Transylvanian architecture that I have chosen to pursue.

It is really important to me to give an accurate and realistic impression of the theme that I have chosen, so after further research, I have found these pictures of some very old crosses that you would typically see in Transylvania. 

After finding the reference, I started working on the bases of the crosses in 3ds max, trying to get the shapes as accurate as I could, and also making some artistic changes to the design.

After I was happy with the shapes, I added some loops to keep the geometry in place and imported them to Zbrush. I subdivided each one of them with the smoothing on multiple times and I started sculpting the details. 

For the small cross, I sculpted the details by hand, and for the big one, I used some alphas to replicate that manufactured look. I wanted the crosses to look worn out, as in they were sitting there unprotected for quite a while, in not-so-great weather conditions. To achieve that look I have added some cracks and dents, also some chipping in the corners. I mainly used trim dynamic and trim adaptive. After all the details were done, I added more texture to them using the orb brushes that my professor linked us to. 

I really love how these turned out, and I can happily say that they do reflect the vision that I had of them. The next was decimating them and bringing them to max for retopology, since the form was alterted quite a lot from the initial models.