Many thanx. I'll have a new one for you tomorrow!

This one is called "An Intentional Wag", although mine comes across as something more along the lines of John Wayne Gacy, I think.

#7. I couldn't find a title for the original (shown below), so I'm calling him The Eternal Optimist.

Next one coming up.

A little time lapse action to enjoy with your morning coffee:

Hey Bill, as someone who doesn't do what you do...I mean, I "know" what you do takes skill and talent and is a lot of work...but since I don't do it myself, I don't really know in a personal way...anyway before I get caught up in a pit of excessive circumlocution, I just wanted to say: seeing the time-lapse gives me a much better idea of the extent of your talent, dedication and the amount of work it takes to do what you do...much respect to you and please don't ever give up even in the face of machine learning!!!

Yes, I fully agree with emong! It's fascinating to see the process. Thank you Bill!

Thank you, guys. I really appreciate that. These kinds of time lapse videos were what initially sucked me in to ZBrush. I can watch them for hours.

Here's another one for you I put together last night. In the end, I think the guy turned out more like a Robert Crumb character than one by Messerschmidt, but that's totally okay by me.

Messerschmidt Character Study #8: The Sheepshead

I've also seen this one called "The Simpleton" and "The Lecher" in various places, but The Sheepshead is the title I'm finding most often.

They all look like henchmen from Batman comic books.

Yup. I thought the same thing. But this was 250 years before anybody ever even thought of Batman!

Here is a link to the time lapse/turn around video. YouTube didn't care for my choice of music so they blocked it, but you can watch it on Vimeo right here:

https://vimeo.com/795720256

I meant your versions look like Batman comics henchmen. Not the originals.

Messerschmidt Character Doodle #9: The Know-It-All Quibbling Quipster

As previously mentioned, Messerschmidt didn't name these himself; someone else titled them after his death. I don't know that this guy looks particularly quibbling to me (although I do love the name), and I didn't go out of my way to make him any more quibblesome than necessary.

Time lapse tomorrow and then another. It's starting to occur to me that I could just do all 49 if I was so inclined (assuming I could find them all).

...and the time lapse.

Note that they are getting faster and faster, in order to accommodate the TikTokification of present day attention spans.

Still loving this, and very grateful that you're still sharing the progress with us.

I appreciate that. More to come.

Not super pleased with this one, really, but I am happy that I've muscled out 10 of these in the past 30 days.

This one is "An Arch Villain". He looked really good at the end of Day 1, and then took a weird turn on Day 2. Unfortunately, I didn't save the earlier iteration, or I would go back and redo the last four hours.

Oh well, all good practice.

If I could even approach the level of competence in what you consider to be a mistake, I'd be absolutely elated. Not to mention your rate of output. Pretty staggering, really.

But I think I maybe get what you mean - yours looks merely pensive in comparison with the intensity of the Messerschmidt original.

This somehow illustrates the intricate nuances that are conveyed by human facial musculature; the difference in mood between the too pieces is quite distinct.

Very observant and astute. His is alive in a way that mine is not; that's the long and the short of it, I guess. Mine is missing the tension. It's nothing another day on it probably couldn't fix, but I'll move on to the next one now. I'm trying to keep the inertia flowin'. Maybe I circle back when I'm done with however many I end up doing and spend another day on each one.

But what's so special about these busts of his are how alive they all are, and how overtly expressive. I'm trying to not make mine carbon copies, but I do want that same intense quality, and looking at all ten side by side, some are better than others. This one just kind of sits there in a way that his does not. But it's an 8 hour sketch; I'm learning as I go - and the beauty of ZBrush is that nothing ever really has to be finished.

If I do spend more time on all of these (and I'm guessing I will), I'll likely take a lot of them off the center line. Like most of his busts my studies here are more or less symmetrical. Some of them I like that way and wouldn't want to change at all, but for others that maybe aren't working as well, one raised eyelid or a lopsided sneer can do wonders for adding personality.

I'm putting a time lapse together now and will post tomorrow. The post-mortems for me are really helpful. I can see right where I've gone off the rails, which helps me avoid the same pitfalls next time.

Here is the time lapse video. Was chugging along and doing great, and then I kind of lost the thread right at the end and turned him into something other than what he'd been up to then. For some reason, I made the conscious decision at that point to fatten him up, turn his chin into a nutsack (as I am wont to do from time to time) and his mouth into a chicken beak - and simultaneously lost my undo history.

Personally, I blame the weed.

All good though. It's all lots of fun and will all make me better.

Practice. Practice. Practice.