Hulkbuster Helmet | John Dickinson | 3D Artist

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3D Modeling | Rendering | Asset Creation

Hulkbuster Helmet

The Marvel Universe is full of amazing tech including the Hulkbuster suit, first featured in Avengers Age of Ultron.

Client / Personal Project

Role / Modelling, Texturing, Lighting, Compositing

Software / Cinema 4D, Substance Painter, Redshift, After Effects

Process

Starting with Hulkbuster helmet toy, using this front and side view.

I got to this point but had a lot of lumps and bumps.

Starting again using the Shrink Wrap workflow to ensure all of the lumps and bumps were squashed. This workflow allows me to focus on creating the correct topology without worrying about the smoothness. The template is a half sphere reshaped using an FFD Deformer.

When an object has various panels, the topology needs to account for the separate panels to facilitate splitting them off cleanly. Only once the topology matches the panels should you start to split the model up. It’s important to constantly view the model under subdivision to ensure the edges follow seams evenly. Once the topology was acceptable I weighted various points and edges and added some control cuts around the mouth (which I removed later and used weighting for that section too because I couldn’t correct the resulting pinching). At this point I started splitting off the various panels and sharpening.

Even with an SDS weighting-only sharpening approach I was getting quite a bit of pinching, evident around the eyes.

Fixed the pinching around the eyes by doubling the subdivision on that plate, weighting the corner points, making that editable then adding further weighting to the result. No control cuts necessary. It’s definitely not a one-size-fits-all when it comes to choosing a subdivision level, each section has to be approached individually. Only after this step did I add extrusion, being sure to select the internal faces and delete them since they won’t be seen.

Using the previous workflow I ended up with clean and sharp topology.

Used the Magnet tool isolated to the Y Axis to add roundness to the panels. I approached each panel individually using this technique which added a subtle roundness to the faces and will help when it comes to texturing and lighting.

And here using the Magnet tool to add curvature between the eyes

Reworked this section to get the edges to better match the example image. Used another ShrinkWrap deformer and retopoed using the grey original (left) as the base, rather than sliding the existing points around to straighten them up.

Split off and extruded the plates that run down the back. I can’t stress the importance of good topology to facilitate this process. Always think a few steps ahead.

Sharpened the plates running down the back and started refining the side vent.

Unwrapping was straightforward using 3D Coat. Here’s the unwrapped model re-imported into Cinema 4D.

Some early gold material tests in Substance Painter.

I love the Substance to Redshift for C4D workflow via @xolotl_studio LiveLink. I can easily tweak the Substance Painter materials directly in Substance while lighting and adding any texture tweaks in Redshift in close to real time

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