Dec 092016
 

Demo sculpts from my Facial Anatomy workshop at Blizzard and UnbisoftThe growing collection of demo sculpts

I’m recently back to London after a long trip to the West Coast (LA, San Francisco). The first stop was Blizzard Entertainment for a four-day facial anatomy workshop. For the uninitiated Blizzard is the juggernaut game developer behind the hit franchises World of Warcraft (WoW), Overwatch, and Starcraft. From their fortress-like campus 100 miles south of LA in Irvine, CA, they run a digital empire built on monsters, magic, and well… fun.

Sculpture in the Blizzard Atrium dark magic at work here, me thinks a levitation spell or something

My job was to level up the artists’ facial anatomy and portrait sculpting skills. The workshop broke down into two days of facial anatomy lecture and two days of portrait sculpting in ZBrush. The content will sound familiar to anyone who actually reads the posts on this website (and doesn’t just looking at the pictures, like most), because I ran a similar workshop for Ubisoft very recently. In fact, you’ll recognize one of the heads rendered above. I added a second head (my Blizzard demo sculpt) to the menagerie this time.

Sculpting facial expressions in ZBrush during Scott Eaton's Facial Anatomy workshop sculpting expressions

Even though we were studying facial anatomy the artists also got a chance to draw and study from the Bodies in Motion site. We drew from quite a few Motions, less for full-body poses but more for examples of skull structure and head/neck articulation and anatomy in dynamic poses. There were some great drawings from the room full of talented artists.

Drawing from Bodies in Motion, head and neck studieshead studies from Bodies in Motion

ORCS AND MORE ORCS


I don’t play WoW, but I recognize an orc when I see one. And yes, there are orcs and menacing creatures everywhere. A friend of mine saw my photos and asked “Don’t they have any friendly sculptures?” No, that’s Disneyland, up the road.

Orc in the Blizzard Reception.

anotherorcatblizzard