Something a little different and quite an interesting use of Zbrush. This project was a site response at the Holy Cross abbey for a group of Cistercian nuns. We took a small sculpture the nuns had of the Madonna and child and used photogrammetry to create a digital model. I used Zbrush to clean up the scan, emphasise certain elements like the dress, and then isolate the part of the sculpture I wanted to make. I then created a series of templates, which I used to shape hundreds of welsh slate roof tiles from the old roof of the abbey. The result was a hand carved slate sculpture with over 200 layers in it.
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This is a very cool use of ZBrush. Definitely unique and as far as I know the first time ZBrush has ever been used in this way.
Do you have WIP images? I’m sure the community would love to see them.
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As requested I will show how this sculpture came about and go into some detail on how I made it. It began with an idea for a centre piece sculpture to be created for the gardens at the Holy Cross Abbey in Wales. I was working there for Sue Diamond, a landscape gardener and fellow graduate of fine art sculpture at Carmarthen School of Art. Sue thought my style of work, which combined digital technology with traditional materials and processes, would generate a good enough sculpture for the nuns at the abbey. The material that caught our eye for the project was two pallets of Welsh slate taken from the roof when it was replaced many years ago. We met with the nuns to discuss what shape this sculpture would take. The woman of the abbey had very traditional tastes in art, and to demonstrate this they brought out a couple of their favourite statuettes. The photo above is of the Madonna and Child statuette that caught my eye and would be the catalyst for this project.
So right there and then I could see this as the perfect reference for a layered slate sculpture. The Madonna was sitting on a chair which could provide a strong foundation the sculpture, and the piece did not have too many overhangs. I had recently been experimenting with some basic photogrammetry and thought this would be a great way to start the design of the sculpture. We took the statue to the workshop for some better lighting and I went about taking a series of photos of the piece. Later I used a program called 3DF Zephyr to generate a 3D model from the photos taken. The above photo is a screenshot of the finished scan. Spurred on by the success of this scan I worked on creating a proposal for the nuns which included the finished design and a completed section of the sculpture.
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Fascinating! Excellent work and thank you so much for sharing! 
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Beautiful work - thanks for sharing the workflow!! 
!!
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So the next stage of this design was in Zbrush. I needed to isolate the Madonna and Child from all the surrounding area, leaving the model and closing off the bottom so it was a solid object. I then sculpted some of the lost detail and sent one stl. off to be 3D printed (this model included the chair), and then prepared another 3D model be cutting out the chair as this would be replaced with breeze blocks at the site of installation. Now I’ll have to dig out my old computer for screenshots of this work and will post these soon. Next stage was take this model into Slicerforfusion360 to generate templates for all the layers. I printed them at home on a £20 printer. They were A4 so I had to stick four together to make up the whole template then cut them up. Over 500 pages! You can see them piled up in the photo above.
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Thank you so much for the kind comments. I’ve got a few more waffles to go. Its a long read but I hope it shows you what can be possible when you mix digital with physical.
In order to get the go ahead for the project I needed to make a presentation to the nuns of the Holy Cross Abbey. They needed to put the project to a vote amongst all their members. I had talked to some of their members about what I planned to do, and there were some reservations. The methods I was using were unfamiliar to them, and idea of layers of slate making up the two figures was difficult for them to visualise. The presentation sought to address these points and went great. I had screenshots of the processes and talked to them about Zbrush and photogrammetry. They were fascinated by it and it was great to expose them to something they had never seen before. And to clinch the proposal I had made the child section of the sculpture so they could see how the layered slate would work. They unanimously voted for the go ahead and a couple months later I arrived at the site ready to get to work. Above is a photo of the site of installation which was prepared for me beforehand, with the 3D print of the model I used as reference.
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From laptop to hammer, there’s nothing like working between digital and physical methods of making. We chipped our way through hundreds of slate rooftiles. The picture above shows the setup me and Sue had to shape each layer of the sculpture. There was a mixture of grey and purple slate to work with. I started with the grey and then gradually introduced the purple until it was all purple toward the top part of the sculpture.
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Here’s a picture of the progress. Each layer is in order and then was unloaded to pallets in reverse order so when I took them off the pile at the site of installation they went on in order! I designed the figure to be life-size to enhance the presence of the sculpture in the gardens.
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Installation went great! Each layer has silicone glue between it, providing adhesion and cushioning. The photo above is close to the point where a hole was introduced to the centre in order to accommodate a steel bar. This bar was mainly needed to support the head, which had the only overhang in the piece. I used an anchor resin around the bar to secure it within the sculpture.
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The sculpture was met with delight by the nuns. A great success. We finished the piece with a chair-like frame around it. Sue the gardener who helped me make will grow a variety of plants around it including climbers and white flowers. The base is surrounded be the offcuts of slate made during the process. The nuns blessed me and the sculpture with holy water and were very grateful for my efforts. The Madonna and Child were symbolic of their order and the gardens have had the ashes of passed nuns scattered there. This was a very humbling piece to make and it will reside in the garden for many years to come.
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Unique and interesting way to use ZBrush, thank so much for posting all of this information with us, it’s always a treat to see innovative ways on how ZBrush is being used 
Jaime
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You did not disappoint with all this extra info. Thank you for sharing it – including digging out the old computer so that you could.
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My pleasure. I’m working on an interesting project at the moment, a very unusual concrete mould, that I will post about when finished. You can find more of my work on my instagram @dorianwilshere_art. Zbrush is a key tool in my practice.
Brilliant!
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