Step into the creative minds of some of today's best ZBrush artists! ZBrush is the digital sculpting and painting program used for animation, film, video, and computer games that has revolutionized the 3D industry. The artists featured in this book use ZBrush to create 3D models for some of the most prestigious studios in the industry such as Disney, Weta Digital, Sony, Dreamworks, Blur and Digital Domain. SECRETS OF ZBRUSH EXPERTS: TIPS, TECHNIQUES, AND INSIGHTS FOR USERS OF ALL ABILITIES allows you the opportunity to look into the creative process of these remarkable artists. Each chapter details the professional background of an individual expert and includes techniques, insights, and resources followed by an image gallery highlighting some of the artist's work, both personal and professional. The book features a companion website that includes image galleries, motion graphics, tutorials, favorite Internet links, and free content. This book and web resource will provide inspiration, insight, and practical advice for ZBrush artists of all abilities.
Secrets of ZBrush Experts
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Sample Art from Secrets of ZBrush Experts
(Click to enlarge)
 "Cthulhu Final" |  "ShowTime_Front" |  "Vase" |  "Eddie" |
 "Procedurally Shaded Plums" |  "Bill" |  Dragon Age Production Still |  "Weaponized Model" |
About the Author
For the past 15 years, Daryl Wise has worked as owner/operator of StreetWise PR (www.StreetWisePR.com), a public relations and marketing firm near Silicon Valley. Clients include or have included Macworld Expos, the artist Peter Max, HP, Ambient Design, Adesso, Pixelmator, Gluon, and e frontier. Wise was director of the Santa Cruz Digital Arts Festival for three years and is a member of Cabrillo College's Digital Arts Advisory Committee. He is the author of SECRETS OF POSER EXPERTS and SECRETS OF COREL PAINTER EXPERTS (Course Technology PTR).
Marina Anderson is a professional computer games and film artist who has been working with CGI for the past 17 years with companies ranging from Virgin Interactive to the Indestructible Production Company at Pinewood Studios in the United Kingdom. Her skill levels and expertise include character creation, texturing, motion capture shoot directing, and key frame animation. You can find her profile and work online at Marinamation.com.
Marina Anderson is a professional computer games and film artist who has been working with CGI for the past 17 years with companies ranging from Virgin Interactive to the Indestructible Production Company at Pinewood Studios in the United Kingdom. Her skill levels and expertise include character creation, texturing, motion capture shoot directing, and key frame animation. You can find her profile and work online at Marinamation.com.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
By Nicholas
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This book is an excellent companion for an intermediate and up zBrush artist. It goes beyond the usual "instructibles" (for which there are already plenty available, so this doesn't clutter the space) and delves into showing you the styles, techniques, tips and tricks used by other, very experienced zBrush users, all of them veritable experts all their own.
There are the needed how-to steps, but also includes interviews with the profiled artists, including background information that you don't usually see in similar books (such as what their preferential brushes or tools are, what other software they use in conjunction with zBrush, unique perspectives and methodologies, etc.), as well as recommendations that can improve your own workflow.
Excellent does not necessarily mean perfect, however. Part of this book's strength also contributes to its weakness. For example, while it isn't a "how-to manual" type of book, some the how-to's are still so sparse that you're left wanting more. An example is a featured "expert" who uses zBrush for printed art (instead of the usual film or game pipelines), but not much detail is provided on that particular genre and what specifics and "secrets" can be gleamed from the perspective of that medium (as opposed to say, the silver screen or a computer monitor or a TV set for console games).
Another beef is the interviews, which seem contrived and generic, applied to almost all profiled "experts" featured in the book, and quickly beefing it up in a way that most magazines are already doing all the time. Something that should be meatier in this type of book instead of a "one size fits all" type of interview questions. It leaves you wishing there were more insightful "secrets" to be had.
On the other hand, these do provide enough to show you how different people approach and utilize zBrush in their own style, and how you can learn from them and apply to your method. Per8haps, in whetting your appetite enough, this only shows the book is in the right track and pushes the right buttons in addressing what its readers really want. It's just that the reader feels wanting and ends up not quite getting there and needing more.
On top of that, the paper used immediately warps quite a bit even after only the first day's use, which is very odd as it is something I've never seen in other books before. That said, this book is more like a course guide and led me to first suspect this is a "self-published" type of book (in that it isn't from a major publishing house but one of the authors' affiliated company; for which there's absolutely nothing wrong with that), which for me would have been a positive in giving an "insider" type of content that general publishing houses may not have sanctioned.
Overall, these are mostly nitpicks but I highly recommend it for inspiration as well as to add fresh insights (even if sparse in some areas) to your 3D and digital sculpting library.
There are the needed how-to steps, but also includes interviews with the profiled artists, including background information that you don't usually see in similar books (such as what their preferential brushes or tools are, what other software they use in conjunction with zBrush, unique perspectives and methodologies, etc.), as well as recommendations that can improve your own workflow.
Excellent does not necessarily mean perfect, however. Part of this book's strength also contributes to its weakness. For example, while it isn't a "how-to manual" type of book, some the how-to's are still so sparse that you're left wanting more. An example is a featured "expert" who uses zBrush for printed art (instead of the usual film or game pipelines), but not much detail is provided on that particular genre and what specifics and "secrets" can be gleamed from the perspective of that medium (as opposed to say, the silver screen or a computer monitor or a TV set for console games).
Another beef is the interviews, which seem contrived and generic, applied to almost all profiled "experts" featured in the book, and quickly beefing it up in a way that most magazines are already doing all the time. Something that should be meatier in this type of book instead of a "one size fits all" type of interview questions. It leaves you wishing there were more insightful "secrets" to be had.
On the other hand, these do provide enough to show you how different people approach and utilize zBrush in their own style, and how you can learn from them and apply to your method. Per8haps, in whetting your appetite enough, this only shows the book is in the right track and pushes the right buttons in addressing what its readers really want. It's just that the reader feels wanting and ends up not quite getting there and needing more.
On top of that, the paper used immediately warps quite a bit even after only the first day's use, which is very odd as it is something I've never seen in other books before. That said, this book is more like a course guide and led me to first suspect this is a "self-published" type of book (in that it isn't from a major publishing house but one of the authors' affiliated company; for which there's absolutely nothing wrong with that), which for me would have been a positive in giving an "insider" type of content that general publishing houses may not have sanctioned.
Overall, these are mostly nitpicks but I highly recommend it for inspiration as well as to add fresh insights (even if sparse in some areas) to your 3D and digital sculpting library.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By booksy
Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
I got this book because it said that it had tips and techniques for "users of all abilities," but it's definitely not for beginners. Zbrush is a very complex program with a very steep learning curve (at least for me) and this book is not suited for learning how to use the program in any way. I'm still trying to learn the simplest tools and for the techniques here, a good working knowledge of Zbrush is required.
For more advanced users of the program, however, the tips look fairly good. Each chapter portrays a different artist, who details one technique that he uses in the creation of a 3D object. It's not completely step-by-step, but there are a lot of (tiny) illustrations and most of the artists do a good job of explaining their steps. Most of the techniques require extra software or plug-ins, too, so keep that in mind.
Each chapter also includes a portfolio of work by the artist, and this portion of the book is really inspiring. The work is really incredible and really made me want to try to learn and use Zbrush more.
There is an "Insights" section which was pretty bland. A lot of the questions seemed pointless or asked about functions of Zbrush or other software that I don't have or know about. The short "resources" section in each chapter was very redundant, most of these artists use the exact same websites for their list so I think it should have just been in a bibliography section at the end.
Each artist gets a little "info" section also, which is basically their resume, which makes the whole tone of the book seem more like it's a vanity portfolio of artists looking for work. I did like the little section where they detail what hardware/software they use with Zbrush, though.
A huge downside for me was the size of the book. It's an odd shape and the portfolio pictures are really quite small. Although the artwork is beautiful, I would have loved to see it in a much larger, coffee-table size format in order to get the most out of it.
Although this book had some good tips in it, I'm really not sure that there isn't anything in here that is not readily available on the internet or even on Zbrush's own website, and because of the small pictures and the way it kind of reads like a portfolio/resume compilation of artists plus some tips, I'm giving it the two stars. If I could I would have given it two-and-a-half stars. For the price, I simply can't recommend it for anything other than looking at the pictures (possibly with magnifying glasses) and looking for an artist to hire for 3D work.
For more advanced users of the program, however, the tips look fairly good. Each chapter portrays a different artist, who details one technique that he uses in the creation of a 3D object. It's not completely step-by-step, but there are a lot of (tiny) illustrations and most of the artists do a good job of explaining their steps. Most of the techniques require extra software or plug-ins, too, so keep that in mind.
Each chapter also includes a portfolio of work by the artist, and this portion of the book is really inspiring. The work is really incredible and really made me want to try to learn and use Zbrush more.
There is an "Insights" section which was pretty bland. A lot of the questions seemed pointless or asked about functions of Zbrush or other software that I don't have or know about. The short "resources" section in each chapter was very redundant, most of these artists use the exact same websites for their list so I think it should have just been in a bibliography section at the end.
Each artist gets a little "info" section also, which is basically their resume, which makes the whole tone of the book seem more like it's a vanity portfolio of artists looking for work. I did like the little section where they detail what hardware/software they use with Zbrush, though.
A huge downside for me was the size of the book. It's an odd shape and the portfolio pictures are really quite small. Although the artwork is beautiful, I would have loved to see it in a much larger, coffee-table size format in order to get the most out of it.
Although this book had some good tips in it, I'm really not sure that there isn't anything in here that is not readily available on the internet or even on Zbrush's own website, and because of the small pictures and the way it kind of reads like a portfolio/resume compilation of artists plus some tips, I'm giving it the two stars. If I could I would have given it two-and-a-half stars. For the price, I simply can't recommend it for anything other than looking at the pictures (possibly with magnifying glasses) and looking for an artist to hire for 3D work.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
Right of the bat I think I should identify myself as one who has never used ZBrush. In fact I didn't even know what it was until I got this book. That being said, after a couple days browsing through the book, I went to the Pixologic website and downloaded the thirty day free trial, just to see if I could have a little fun with the program.
And I have been having some fun with it, though if you're an absolute beginner, then this isn't the book for you. Oh, it's very interesting and a lot of fun to look through, but this book assumes you have a knowledge of the program, more than I'm going to get before my trial is up.
However, I have learned enough in the last three weeks to be able to say that if you've been using ZBrush for awhile and are familiar with the program, then this book will take you up a notch or two. Also, this book will show you how others have been using the program and the results they've achieved. Some of it is absolutely astounding, breathtaking and remarkable, as is this book.
And I have been having some fun with it, though if you're an absolute beginner, then this isn't the book for you. Oh, it's very interesting and a lot of fun to look through, but this book assumes you have a knowledge of the program, more than I'm going to get before my trial is up.
However, I have learned enough in the last three weeks to be able to say that if you've been using ZBrush for awhile and are familiar with the program, then this book will take you up a notch or two. Also, this book will show you how others have been using the program and the results they've achieved. Some of it is absolutely astounding, breathtaking and remarkable, as is this book.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
Could have been better
This book is an adequate addition to your library if you have substantial background with ZBrush. In no way is this book suitable for newbies. Read more
Published 26 days ago by Brad Teare
3.0 out of 5 stars
Cofee Table Book
This is a neat book for fans of Digital Character type art. It's really a coffee table book much more than a "how to" type of book. Read more
Published 3 months ago by GameMaker
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Fantastic Tool, But More for the Experience zBrusher
An amazing book for someone with previous zbrush experience.
Tips from professionals really help the aspiring modeler unlock zbrush's full potential. Read more
Tips from professionals really help the aspiring modeler unlock zbrush's full potential. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Sean Dooley
4.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful book may best suit the moderately experienced ZBrush artist
It probably ought to go without saying that if you know Zbrush inside and out, you're going to get less value from this book than people who are relative newcomers or who have not... Read more
Published 11 months ago by A. Reid
4.0 out of 5 stars
Not a beginner's guide.
First off, this is not for the ZBrush beginner. I understand that the title tells you this, but some people still may be wondering. Read more
Published 11 months ago by T. Paslay
4.0 out of 5 stars
INSPIRATION FOR THE DIGITAL ARTIST
If you are already a skilled artist and feel comfortable with a brush, pencil or pen, you will find numerous helpful tips for finessing your skills as a digital artist using... Read more
Published 13 months ago by Robin Simmons
2.0 out of 5 stars
Nice Pictures but the information is not revelatory
I was happy with the "Secrets of Corel Painter Experts" book so I took a chance with this one. I've been using Zbrush for a number of years and I am always looking out for tips. Read more
Published 14 months ago by Mr.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great Tips but lacking
I'm not a beginner and I can say this is not for them. Most of the Tips, and Techniques, are on the internet somewhere, but it nice to have it in one place. Read more
Published 15 months ago by Troy
1.0 out of 5 stars
Family Edition ZBrush Art Book...
Yeah, not my favorite ZBrush book.
As one reviewer noted, the paper quality is very cheap...
The thing that really piss's me off is the fact that the (book-nazi) editor... Read more
As one reviewer noted, the paper quality is very cheap...
The thing that really piss's me off is the fact that the (book-nazi) editor... Read more
Published 15 months ago by Ace Rimmer
3.0 out of 5 stars
Useful, but lacking
Z-Brush is a boon to CG artists; allowing far more flexibility and detail than the strict limitations of basic polygon modelling. Read more
Published 16 months ago by Grant Beaudette
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