Finished the boots for the male character. The girl character's shoes should be a quicker sculpt, since they are fairly similar in that they are worn leather, probably hand-me downs, the main difference is the style is a lower cut shoe as opposed to an actual boot. I had a fun time making these boots, I've tried modeling shoes in Zbrush before and never had very good results, but I'm pretty pleased with the way these came out :-)
Modeling Reference
Obviously I tried to get as close as possible to the boots illustrated by Rockwell (far left), but since it's a bit more stylized not all the details are visible, so I had to look for similar boots to get reference for some of those smaller details
Boot UVs and Low-Poly Mesh
This will be a good model to test displacement on, typically if was using Mental Ray I would export my next subdivision out of Zbrush, which has a slightly higher poly count and tends to hold displacement details better.
High Poly Zbrush Sculpt
I'll probably end up doing another fine detail pass to layer on top of the existing bump/displacement, but I prefer to make that last pass at the same time as I'm texturing, since alot of the details will come from the color map and it helps me determine how much more detail I need to add to the bump/displacement.
Texture Reference
Obviously the next step for the boots is texturing. Again I will be trying to match as closely as possible the boots pictured in the Rockwell illustration, but I will definitely need leather references to create the final look. These worn leather swatches are fairly close to the look I want.
