Outhouse Mimic

Project Goal

I don’t work in ZBrush very often, so I wanted to improve my proficiency with the software. Additionally, I chose a subject that was unconventional for me – I hadn’t worked with organics or creatures before, which presented a welcome challenge.

Most interestingly, I explored a new texturing pipeline directly within ZBrush that bypasses the traditional UV mapping stage.

This project was created as part of an intensive course at https://mykhailykart.school/zbrush/.

My mentor, Vitalii Hryhoriv, provided excellent feedback throughout the process.

Software

• PureRef, Pinterest – References
• Photoshop and Gemini – Concept
• ZBrush – Sculpting and Texturing
• Marmoset Toolbag – Rendering

References & Concept

I believe this is one of the most important stages in creating any object. I knew my Mimic would be large, with substantial surfaces and volumes, but at that stage, I hadn’t decided what exactly it would be.

So, I went to Pinterest for inspiration and gathered several options that I liked: a bookshelf, a coffin, a wardrobe, gates, and a throne. However, the outhouse option caught my attention the most. Let me explain why.

If you go to ArtStation and search for a bookshelf, you will find thousands of different versions – but if you search for an outhouse, you’ll see how few such works exist, which already makes this choice more interesting.

I also liked that an outhouse has large surfaces that can be textured in various ways, and the creature itself would blend in organically. Additionally, my grandfather had a similar outhouse in his village when I was little, and I was always afraid to go there.

They say you have to face your fear to overcome it, so here we are! 😀

Next, I gather more specific references. I use Google and Pinterest for my search and collect everything in PureRef. These include references for large and medium forms, as well as detailing for both the organic parts and the outhouse itself.

At this stage, I usually gather additional references for texturing; however, the ones I already had contained all the necessary information, so I didn’t need to search for any more.

Concept

Once I have a clear vision of the object in my head, I move on to creating a concept so I don’t get lost during the process. Previously, I did this in Photoshop, drawing everything by hand.

However, nowadays, AI significantly simplifies and speeds up this stage. I know many are against using AI, but I believe it is simply a new tool that makes our lives better.

Similarly, people were once against Photoshop itself. Or are you against UV Packmaster, which perfectly packs your UVs in seconds? The world is moving forward, and we should embrace new technologies.

So, I fed a few options into the AI – in the first iterations, I used ChatGPT, but it didn’t understand me well. As you can see, it added several heads and didn’t pull the tongue out.

I took those two options, painted over them in Photoshop, and then fed them into Gemini with a detailed prompt, which gave me an almost perfect result.

After a few more iterations of AI and Photoshop, I had the final concept ready.

Blockout

This stage was quite simple. I built the outhouse based on real-world dimensions. I paid great attention to the silhouette (as seen in the top left corner).

It is crucial that the silhouette is easily readable so that it’s immediately clear what the object is. In addition to being recognisable, the silhouette needs to be interesting: sticking-out planks, bits of metal, the heart cutout in the door for a focal point, the gap between the base and the broken door, chips in the wood, and so on.

Sculpting

There is no “magic” here, but rather a methodical approach.

I simply used standard brushes to provide general big forms to the organics and later for medium details. I did all the fine detailing and textures mainly using custom brushes and alphas (for example, wood and organic textures).

Here you can see how the object gradually changed.

You might notice that at a certain point, the overall shape of the object changed.

I did this to add more dynamics to the object. This way, the mimic comes to life a bit, and the silhouette becomes even more interesting.

I did this using the Transpose Master function.

And for the deformation of the planks and metal, I chose the Bend Curve tool.

I focused on the interaction points where the organics meet the hard surface to ensure the creature looks integrated rather than just “sitting inside” the box.

I made the tree bark on the mimic’s legs following this tutorial.

I made all the wood chips using Booleans, having previously created a single chip.

I made the saliva using ZSpheres.

Moss

I created one blade of moss and made an Insert Mesh and NanoMesh brush from it.

Then I selected the necessary areas using a mask, grew the moss with ZModeler, and adjusted the sliders in NanoMesh so that the moss wasn’t identical.

That’s it – we have the detailed model ready.

Texturing

And here comes the most interesting stage for me – texturing. In a standard pipeline, I would start doing retopology, make UVs, bake normal maps and AO, and go into Substance Painter to texture. But this is where the ZBrush magic kicks in.

Of course, this option is not suitable for in-game use, but for a quick presentation of the work – it’s wow!

We don’t do retopology or UVs – we just texture our high-poly directly in ZBrush using Spotlight and Polypaint. Here are examples in the video of how I did it – this way, I textured the entire object and got a great result.

When texturing, I paid close attention to the diversity of the wood, blending lighter and darker shades with specific accent spots. I also differentiated the metal pieces on the roof by tone, adding detailed rust textures. On the creature, I applied various color gradients to enhance the sense of volume and bring out the fine details.

Next, I exported the model as separate FBX files, having previously divided the object by materials. Along with the geometry, we export our Polypaint, which will then serve as the Base Color.

We will set up the materials in Marmoset – we will have the ability to adjust roughness, metalness, and transparency.

That is, if the mimic’s legs and body have different roughness, they should be two separate materials. In my case, almost everything was separate materials, as I wanted to add variety.

As you can see, the material setup is as simple as it gets. I played around a bit with the mimic’s body and the saliva, but everything else is pretty much basic.

Rendering

For the scene, I used free objects from FAB.

Here, I want to show you why “more” doesn’t mean “better.” As you can see, I built an entire village here, tweaked absolutely every render setting slider, and got a very poor result. My object gets lost in the scene and doesn’t draw any attention, and because of the unsuccessful settings, the mimic became shiny and unattractive.

I went back to the previous stage, where I only had the materials set up, and started meticulously configuring the scene. Unfortunately, I didn’t save the final scene with textures, so I’m sharing the clay render (flat fill) instead.

I placed significantly fewer objects in the background, opting for larger assets that create clear planes – this prevents the viewer from getting lost while looking at the image.

I added trees to breathe life into the scene and moved the mimic closer to the camera while pushing the background further away. This effectively separated the foreground, middle ground, and background. The fog I added worked perfectly due to the increased distance between the mimic and the background objects.

I chose a neutral evening sky light and darkened it significantly to create an anxious, haunting atmosphere. Then, I added four light sources:

• Key light: Focused on the mimic to immediately draw the eye.
• Fill lights (2 and 3): To illuminate the background fence and surrounding area – without these, everything was just a black void.
• Rim/Accent light (4): Directed at the foreground trees to emphasise the depth of the scene.

And here is the final result:

Conclusion

Good – though perhaps not perfect – texturing in ZBrush is possible. Great texturing without UVs is possible. A stunning presentation of your work directly from ZBrush, without spending massive amounts of time and effort, is also possible. Just give it a try.

I’d like to thank Games Artist for the opportunity to share this experience. I hope every reader found something interesting here and felt inspired to create their own mimic.