I really wanted to cover texture creation in Zbrush, to paint my character heads.
I sourced a number of useful skin textures, and facial photographic reference,
then imported them into Zbrush. Loading the textures into the Spotlight tool
overlays them on top of the model in the viewport. By transforming (scale,
rotate, move) both the image and the underlying model it is possible to line up
the image with the geometry below. Using a brush tool and painting over the
texture projects the colour information onto the model.
I continued to paint each major facial structure, moving the image when necessary
to achieve the best fit for my model. To fill any areas of back facing geometry I used a colour spray brush
to sample the nearest colour to the unpainted area.
Using different textures can lead to a mosaic effect due to the variation of lighting
and skin tones in the images. I used the clone and smudge tools to subtly blend these border areas together.
The final head looks impressively realistic.
