ZBrush Character Creation: Advanced Digital Sculpting

Very useful, and gives you a breakdown of traditional form to digital which is a must. The tutorials are helpful as well. But overall great book if you want to understand form and gesture, he also explains the interface of Zbrush and why the menus are organized the way they are.
Buy this book.

A great book with a wealth of production proven information!

Scott approaches topics from both traditional and digital stand point. The book is packed with info covering just about any topic the aspiring or experienced Zbrush artist could ask for. The additional information included from other professionals really completes a great book.

The trial and error time that this book will save is enormous - highly recommended!

I wrote a review on this once before, and it has strangely disappeared! Hmmmm... I will repeat what I said before: You MAY not be able to use the CD that comes with this book!

First SYBEX makes you have the CD in the computer before you can access the files. They encrypt them, so you cannot simply copy the files to your hard drive. You MUST run their menus program to get to anything.

Their start-up program is written in Adobe Shockwave and Flash. If this program does not run on your system (and it did not work on mine!) you will not be able to access ANY of the files that accompany this book. Which GREATLY reduces the value of this book for you.

The user community needs to tell SYBEX that this is unacceptable. When we pay $50 for a book, we expect to be able to access the files on the CD!

Buyer beware on this... SYBEX's only response is to send you a new CD -- and guess what? It won't work either, because the problem is an incompatibility between versions of ADOBE flash. If you don't have the right version, this CD will simply not work for you.

I'd like to know who deleted my previous review. I think its important to understand the potential pitfalls.

A truly incredible book, written by a master of both traditional and digital character sculpture. This book contains lessons that go beyond the software drawing on Scott's experience in the industry and artistic and anatomical training. I've studied with Scott personally over the past few years and I've gained a great deal from his teaching. ZBrush Character Creation encapsulates his own style and ability as a teacher and includes many extras submitted by the best Zbrush artists in the world. This book is intended for intermediate users, Scott goes through the basics of the software very quickly so this is not recommended for people who are new to the software. If you know enough to get around the interface and create a simple figure then your ready for Scott's book.

Being new to ZBrush and 3D character modeling, I've been looking for a while for a good resource that would, (1) give me a good jump-start into these worlds, and (2) be advanced enough for me to grow into and keep me interested. Scott Spencer's "ZBrush Character Creation" book is just that...plus more.

The content of the book is excellent; explaining everything from traditional sculpting techniques, anatomy, ZBrush fundamentals, topics of character creation, and on to advanced ZBrush tools. There is so much great info in this book! Additionally, Scott includes a cool DVD which contains the corresponding source files and video demonstrations. I can see why Scott is an expert in the field from the level of detail he demonstrates in the video presentations. One amazing demo in particular is how Scott sculpts a human face -- He starts out by creating a skull from a sphere and then intricately builds up the rest of the face, layer by layer, with the muscles, fat, and skin. This demo is just in chapter 2 so you can imagine what other great content there is in all the other chapters of this book.

Thank you Scott for creating this book!