Details

For the details on the high-poly sculpt, I would say the most challenging aspect was creating believable wear and tear (specifically battle damage) to the objects. It required a bunch of research before even starting the project as a whole. Many artists have said it and it holds true that the importance of research and reference cannot be underestimated. No fancy brushes or tools were used to create the damage. It was a combination of a few brushes such as dam standard, and a few polish brushes. The gold details on the scabbard were done with masks and then extracted as a separate SubTool. As stated previously when creating alphas to add micro detail I found that using NDO to generate height maps from your textures works much better than simply converting your images to black and white. That method tends to yield cleaner and more accurate results. I don’t know if there is a real “efficient way”, I think you just have to find a way that works for you and stick with it or develop it to better suit your needs. One method that might work for you might not work for someone else. One thing I would suggest is to play around with different brushes and see what each one does and how you can use it you suit your needs based on the current task. I would also recommend building your own custom zBrush alpha library, that way you have a reliable wealth of alphas which would help speed up your process on any future projects.