These past few days have a been a bit unusual, perhaps borderline insane-asylum-warranting, but the mere thought of my zombie companions passionately nibbling on my scalp has gotten me through these relentless tides. Just remember - if you ever feel down, snuggle with a zombie.

Unfortunately, my week long vacation is quickly coming to an end, which means my progress on this project will undoubtedly shift into slow gear - but don't worry, there won't necessarily be a noticeable difference in updates, considering my focus this past week hasn't been entirely on recreating the walking undead anyway. Here's my current progress update:

Whenever I'm working on character development, I jot down thoughts at they come to mind - mainly for the purpose of sharing with others, but also with the intent of future reference. That's the justification for my rapidly expanding text file full of fragments and backwards notes about 3D modeling. Rather than fleshing them out into full fledged paragraphs full of deep, logical information, I'll just bullet point it. And share it with you, of course. Because, really, who doesn't love sharing? 

1. You can achieve creases by placing two edges closely together. This essentially creates a tight strip of polygons that, even when smoothed, retain a sharp-edged appearance. In the zombie model, this can be found around the lips, creases around the mouth area, and with a bit of modification, the wrinkles on the forehead.A lot of your time will be spent rounding surfaces. 
2. When you need more resolution in a specific area of a mesh, you'll insert a new edge. If the surface is to appear even and flowing, it's generally best to insert the new edge directly halfway inbetween the two existing edges.
3. When you're rounding out an area, you're concentrating on all of the edges/vertices between the first edge and the last edge. Imagine the curve and think of how the vertices should be appropriately placed to transition from point A to point B evenly.
4. When working from a reference image: if you're not using image planes directly or the reference image isn't very accommodating, you'll need to be extra particular with proportions. A good approach to translating proportions from a 2D drawing to 3D space is continuously comparing relative distances. For example, how far is it from the chin to the tip of the nose, from the tip of the nose to the top of the eyebrows, and the finally from the chin to the top of the eyebrows? This is actually a common technique when doing any life drawing, and it's definitely applicable in a 3D environment as well.
5. Like the previous tip, this also applies to sculpting in real life: always look at your model from various angles, and I don't mean just the general orthographic views (front, left, top, etc.)... that alone simply won't cut it! Hop into the perspective panel and rotate the viewport, looking at your model from all angles imaginable. With the viewport's focus on the model itself, slowly drag and rotate and make sure that nothing looks out of order.
6. Regarding the above tip, viewing your model at unusual angles is key to really defining the curves and smoothing the surfaces. I've bolded this tip for a reason;  trust me - a curve that looks perfectly even in both the front and side views may still appear uneven or offset in 3D perspective. Rotate around your model and you'll easily see uneven surfaces (don't underestimate this tip. If someone had explained this to me when I first began modeling, it would've saved me so many headaches rather than struggling and figuring it out myself. You have been warned, zombie babies!)
7. I'm spending quite a bit of time really refining this zombie and getting his proportions right, and that's fine, simply for the fact that he's going to be reused. Over. And. Over. We need a strong base template, and using this model, we can easily change some proportions and tweak some physical features to morph him into every other zombie in the PvZ universe. This will save us the trouble of having to model each zombie from scratch, which increases efficiency and cuts down on precious time (though, since this is a personal project, there is no time limit!). In fact, this technique of reusing and tweaking a model is common in the big studios. In Pixar's The Incredibles, for example, a generic human character was modeled. For any scenes that required crowds or large audiences, the generic human character was cloned numerous times with proportion adjustments made to each duplicate, resulting in an audience full of diverse characters - all originating from one single mesh!
8. The idea of reusing assets isn't specific to entire models either. Common body parts can easily be imported and stitched onto your models. Hands and feet are some of the most commonly recycled parts, and most of my models use the same exact ear mesh, just slightly modified to suit the character.  I first heard about this technique many years ago when reading through Paul Steed's "Modeling a Character in 3DS Max" (good read by the way, but might seem a bit outdated now!).
9. Areas that won't be a focal point don't need as much attention. I hate to say that, as you might think it encourages laziness, but when time is an issue and deadlines are imminent, you have to search for efficient approaches. Think of areas where the camera would most likely never reach in standard shots. Deep inside the mouth, behind the ears, underneath the hair - these are all regions that won't stay in focus too long. In the event that a certain shot calls for a closeup of one of these areas, you can create a separate mesh with the desired detail.
10. Adding a black surface shader (an area that's unaffected by light) is great for grasping a better idea of color balance. It enhances contrast and balances focus. Areas such as the pupils, inside the mouth, and inside of the nostrils work well with a surface shader (meaning, in the viewport and in renders, any area a surface shader is applied to will be completely black).
11. A lot of the time when adding resolution to your mesh, you'll end up with a bunch of extra edges that have absolutely no purpose. Don't be so quick to delete them - I found that over half of the time, those extra edges do come in handy later down the road. I might add a couple of additional edge loops to the stomach, and end up with some extra edges extending up to the chest I have no use for. Later in the modeling process, I'll find that I need some edges to define the pecs, and - OH GOODNESS, THE EDGES HAVE ALREADY BEEN CREATED BY PAST JON WHEN HE WAS WORKING ON THE ABS. THANKS!
12. Don't go too crazy though in adding too much detail before you shape. My philosophy (most of the time) is to adjust and smooth any new vertices as soon as they're created. If you continuously cut and cut and cut, without taking a moment inbetween to shape the new edges, you'll end up with a super high resolution mesh and a confused gaze in your eyes as you try to figure out how to shape this big mass of points. Ignoring this approach in digital sculpting software such as ZBrush, where resolution is key, can completely leave you drowning.
13. Sometimes you need more resolution in a particular area, and you know for a fact that you don't foresee the surrounding areas ever needing more resolution in the future. Don't be afraid to cut new edges that could potentially result in tris or ngons (3 sided polygons, and 5+ sided polygons). In the end it's good practice to aim for quads, considerably in areas that will be heavy animation points, but while getting your model all planned out, don't worry so much!
14. Jumping off from the above point, I use this approach extensively. I never let ngons or tri's stop me from continuing. Heck, if I stopped every time I saw that a cut I'd make would introduce a non-quad polygon, I'd probably never even finish half of the character models I start. I establish the figure first, with little focus on the ensuring it's a full quad mesh, and once I got a solid figure constructed, then I go and try to eliminate triangles and ngons. Most of the time, a triangle works itself out as you progress. A new edge unintentionally turns that triangle into a quad.
15. Sometimes your mesh will be too dense in certain areas, containing way too many verts and tossing the topological balance off completely. There are methods for optimizing meshes, techniques that deal with converting 3 polygons into one, getting rid of tri's, etc. There are numerous sources online with valuable information regarding these techniques, but if anyone is interested, I'll share some too.

15 tips for today! I'll keep a numbered list so you can keep track, and see if you can collect them all! 

Tomorrow (technically later today, actually!), I'll discuss the current progress on Mr. Zombie, explaining some character design decisions, liberties I took with balancing his anatomy, and  key elements relevant to constructing a strong figure. And remember - If you don't snuggle with a zombie, you'll struggle with a calm tree!

-Jon