New to 3D, Practice sculpts
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Everyone in my personal life thinks it’s weird I’m trying to learn to sculpt as a hobby, but I found 3D sculpting apps on the iPad I already use as a drawing tablet so I figured it couldn’t be THAT hard to try it out. Well it sort of is and now I envy you real 3D artists much more.
Flattery aside, I wanted some critique and tips on my first grasps of sculpting. I’ve spent several days on them, which seems way too long for me to still not understand.
I usually draw cartoon or anime-style human characters and that’s what I mostly want to focus on in 3D. I understand a general idea of realism but it’s not what I’m going for: I like small chins and big eyes.
Flattery aside, I wanted some critique and tips on my first grasps of sculpting. I’ve spent several days on them, which seems way too long for me to still not understand.
I usually draw cartoon or anime-style human characters and that’s what I mostly want to focus on in 3D. I understand a general idea of realism but it’s not what I’m going for: I like small chins and big eyes.
I’m still learning the tools and what they do. I’ve discovered dynamesh/remeshing, I’ve tried understanding subdivisions but not very sure how they work. I mostly use the MOVE, CLAY, FLATTEN and CREASE tools.
My YouTube history is full of 3D sculpting tutorials and I spend most of my free time watching and trying to understand what they do.
HARDWARE: iPad Pro 12.9” (2018) 1TB storage 6GB RAM
SOFTWARE: Nomad Sculpt, Forger
EXAMPLES:
forger app sculpt very first time
Nomad sculpt attempt #3 and #4, this entire time I hadn’t used references because I didn’t know how to use references for 3D. For these last 3 attempts I was trying to make a basic cartoon girl.
HARDWARE: iPad Pro 12.9” (2018) 1TB storage 6GB RAM
SOFTWARE: Nomad Sculpt, Forger
EXAMPLES:
forger app sculpt very first time
Nomad sculpt attempt #3 and #4, this entire time I hadn’t used references because I didn’t know how to use references for 3D. For these last 3 attempts I was trying to make a basic cartoon girl.
For my latest attempt, I finally used references, trying to think in 3D by using turnarounds, other misc tips, as well as using poly-paint on the head itself so that I know where I want features and to potentially mask around, such as making the ear and lips. Also I took advice and tried making a stylized yet still angular man instead of a subtle girl’s face.
After taking a break to write this post, I think one thing I need to change is the width of the head, but I’ll wait for feedback if anyone agrees about that change (or tips on how to do that without losing my progress, or if I shouldn’t worry about losing progress at all? Much of sculpting feels like trial and error and making forms and losing them to remesh).
A specific question I have is if anyone has tips on how to make eyebrows. After I make the sockets, but the eyeballs in the sockets, and make eyelids (however bad they may be), I feel like I’d be more confident in a sculpt if the character had eyebrows to make it seem more familiar and human. Which tool or primitive would work to achieve a good eyebrow, not many tutorials mention this?
After taking a break to write this post, I think one thing I need to change is the width of the head, but I’ll wait for feedback if anyone agrees about that change (or tips on how to do that without losing my progress, or if I shouldn’t worry about losing progress at all? Much of sculpting feels like trial and error and making forms and losing them to remesh).
A specific question I have is if anyone has tips on how to make eyebrows. After I make the sockets, but the eyeballs in the sockets, and make eyelids (however bad they may be), I feel like I’d be more confident in a sculpt if the character had eyebrows to make it seem more familiar and human. Which tool or primitive would work to achieve a good eyebrow, not many tutorials mention this?
For reference, I don’t think forger or Nomad Sculpt have extraction tools or any tools to specifically select vertices/faces, these are mainly adding or subtracting clay and moving it around. I could be wrong because there’s not many tutorials about the specific tools and settings in these apps.
Replies
For all of them you should have put in the eyeballs few stages back. It's going to be harder for you to sculpt a face with just empty eye sockets. To me, when I started with 3d eyes were the most difficult part to do. So I spent most of the time on them, trying different things, and now they are not that scary
About the eyebrows, if you're going for an anime face, you can just simply paint them on at the end. You can also add primitive, scale it down, just drag/move where you want it, and sink it into the skin a bit. Or you can use the clay brush on the face to fake hairs.
I was also doing a lot of cartoon/anime heads when I started, so I know what you are going through. It's pretty confusing to go from 2d to 3d. If you have some more questions just message me.
also was this a good stage to subdivide rather than remesh? Because remesh was starting to just ruin any forms I was creating.
ignore the mouse placement and the neck problems, my most recent move tool use made a lot of things wonky since I made the brush max size and moved the head proportions
I couldn’t decide whether to make a male or female character so it’s sort of androgynous. I think this looks less like a little gray alien, any feedback would be welcome I think I’ll make the ears with a different mesh and glue them on. Unfortunately the only way I can figure to make hair in this app is to start with a sphere and manipulate it into tentacles for hair until it resembles something. I wish I could make those nice looking curves like in blender for hair locks.