Importing the pants and coat into Zbrush, and further sculpting

 Fortunately, importing the pants and the coat to Zbrush was not an issue. Once I placed them onto the model, all I had to do was dynamesh them and zremesh them, which fixed most of the issues, and then went in with the smooth brush in places where the geometry was crowded such as the armpit, etc... For the thickness, I used the dynamic subdivision approach.

The meshes do require some more work tho. I do need to add some additional folds and make some adjustments to the coat since the fabric looks a little bit too flowy at this point, and I do want it to be made out of a tougher material.

For the top part of the coat I just extracted the shape and then manipulated it to achieve the shape I want, using the polish deformation and also the move brush. 

Making the clothes in Marvelous Designer

 After I was happy with the base I made in Zbrush, it was time to move to Marvelous designer. The pants were relatively easy to make. I followed a pattern that I saw online, simplifying it substantially so that I would avoid potential errors after importing the mesh into Zbrush. 

After I simulated it, I made some further adjustments to the lengths of the pattern in the 2d viewport, so that the pants would resemble more the concept that I was working of. I will be adding some more details in Zbrush, such as the pockets and the sewing. I will also add some additional folds as well.

The coat was easier to make than I thought. I took inspiration from the pattern I used for the shirt previously in my exercise, and of course, made some changes to it to reach the desired result. As before, the most difficult part was sewing the sleeves, but I thankfully managed it. Since the coat in the concept is made up of two parts, having another bit hanging over the arms, I will be doing that later in Zbrush, because if I were to do that here at this stage, it will definitely cause problems later in the import process.

I also decided to export the clothes without thickness. I will be adding in Zbrush, considering that I will have to dynamesh and zremesh everything, and the thickness will cause problems. Also, by doing that, I will be able to make the inside part be a different polygroup. 

Polishing the body and planning the clothing.

 After some further feedback that I have gotten from my professor Will and also from guests that we had from the industry at university, I made quite some changes to the model. 

First was fixing the posture, and polishing the features of each body part, so that it would be more anatomically accurate, and also tunning down the sharp features of the muscles, so that they would look more natural, and also for better results once I reach the marvelous designer stage, considering that the clothing will be simulated on top of the existing forms.

At this stage, I also decided to settle on the exact concept that I wanted to make since I needed to start working on the clothing.  After some thought, I decided that there was a particular concept that struck my attention from my initial mood board and that was the Villain Character Concept made by Helena Lucca Schulin. I reached out to the artist and asked for permission to use the concept for my project, and thankfully she accepted. 

Generally, I will be sticking to the concept, but I will be adding some stuff and changing a few things to make him look more like a captain. After this was settled, I needed to make a plan for the clothing. What will I be making in Marvelous, and what will I be sculpting? One thing that I kept hearing from most of the guests we had is that Marvelous is heavily used in the industry, so this is definitely a software that I need to learn how to use properly. I do have a bit of knowledge about it, having used it to do the drapery for my Jacket project. The way how things work in Marvelous is that you are sewing stuff on top of each other, in the order that they are layered in. So, I decided that I was going to make the pants and coat in, Marvelous, making the underneath shirt, vest, and scarf in Zbrush. In order to be moving to the next stage, I have to get a few things done in Zbrush first, such as the shoes underneath the pants, the vest etc...

Having picked the general concept, I went in and made some more changes to the face, because he looked way too much like a model, and not so much like a villain. Also, I did want to make him look more like the man in the concept. To achieve this I made his top lip thinner, lowered and angled the eyebrows, and changed the nose shape, and also the angle of the eyes.

For now, I will be stopping working on the face, and I will revisit it once I get a base for the clothing. Regarding the body, I will stop working on it altogether, since it will end up being covered completely and considering I already have a pretty good base.

Making the base of the Jacket

Having the mannequin already was really helpful during the sculpting process of the Jacket, because I was able to steal forms from it with the extract tool. The vest was done with that workflow, having the base shape masked, and then manipulating the extraction with the move tool.

After I made the drapery in Marvelous, I imported it into zbrush, put it in place, and after a few zremeshes, I gave it thickness with dynamic subdivisions.

For the top bit of the Jacket, I followed the same process, while also making some shapes in 3DS max for the metal parts to make my life easier. I do need to figure out the breakdown of the different materials on top, and how I will approach sculpting them. 

Making my first clothing piece in Marvelous

 The first time I used Marvelous was for the cloth bit for my Jacket, and to be honest I was quite intimidated by it at the start. After I did some more research, I started understanding more of how it works and what I am supposed to do in it. The process is relatively simple. You need a pattern that you can make yourself or get one from real life, make the bits in the 2d viewport with the tools there, place them in 3D and then sew the clothing and simulate it. 

When I did the drapery for the Jacket, it was a relatively quite simple process. I just quickly made a shape in the 2d viewport, similar to what I envisioned, placed it in 3d, and then pinned it to the model, since there was no structure to hold it in place yet.

After that, I exported the simulated result and imported it into Zbrush.

Before I started working on the actual clothing for the Captain, I decided to make a shirt, in order to get more familiar with the software, and also learn it more properly. Since a shirt is a bit more complicated than some drapery, I needed a pattern to start working from. After some searching, I was able to find quite a good one.

To help me out with the process I have watched this tutorial: https://youtu.be/h7mK4x8-jd8

that went through the UI of Marvelous and the basics of using the program.

The sewing of the clothing was relatively simple and intuitive, but the sleeves were quite hard to figure out since they had to be sewn onto 2 different bits of fabric, which had to be done in a specific order for it to work properly.