If you have ever tried to go into the Blender sculpting tab, either your mesh would not let you sculpt or your sculpting will looks basic, but in this Blender sculpting tutorial, Fox Renderfarm will take you through the process on how you can get started with sculpting and how you can use free brushes to boost your workflow and improve it.
Why You Should Learn Blender Sculpting?
Before we start, why should you learn Blender sculpting? One good reason to learn sculpting in Blender is to add awesome details to your mesh. Sculpting lets you easily add things like wrinkles, skin texture, and all sorts of small, realistic touches that would be a pain to do with regular modeling. You can even bake those details into maps and apply them to low-poly models, so they look super high-quality without adding too much geometry. It’s a great way to make your models stand out!
How Sculpting Works
Sculpting works by manipulating the vertices of your mesh, which are the points that make up the shape. When you increase the subdivisions of your mesh, you’re essentially adding more vertices, which gives you a much smoother surface to work with. The higher the subdivisions, the more detail you can add because you have more geometry to work with. This lets you push and pull the surface in finer ways.
Basics of Sculpting in Blender
When you first start sculpting in Blender, the first thing you’ll notice is that your mesh doesn’t seem to let you sculpt on it. This happens because your mesh doesn’t have any subdivisions. Sculpting works by manipulating the geometry of the mesh, and with low subdivisions, there simply aren’t enough vertices to work with.
You can fix this by adding more subdivisions, this will increase the number of vertices, allowing you to sculpt with greater detail.
However, keep in mind that higher subdivisions require more processing power, and depending on your computer’s specs, it might slow things down or cause performance issues.
Subdivisions
You can subdivide your mesh manually in edit mode, but there’s also an easier way!
Add the subdivision modifier in the modifier tab, set the modifier to "Simple", and increase the subdivision level. It’s important to apply this modifier before entering Sculpt Mode since it doesn't work while sculpting.
However, there’s another modifier that’s perfect for sculpting, and that is the Multi Resolution Modifier. It works directly in Sculpt Mode. To use it, simply select your mesh, add the modifier, and click Simple Subdivision. You can adjust the subdivision levels separately for both the viewport and sculpt mode, which gives you more flexibility and control while sculpting. This is a great option when you want to maintain a balance between performance and detail.
Dynamic Topology
If you want to add micro details or sculpt on a mesh without manually subdividing it, Dynamic Topology is a lifesaver. This feature automatically subdivides your mesh only where you are sculpting.
- To enable it, simply check the "Dyntopo" box in the tool settings.
- From there, you can adjust the detail level (a low value for fine details, like skin or stitches).
- While Dynamic Topology can speed up your workflow, it does destroy your topology, so it’s important to remesh your model later on if you want to clean things up.
Sculpting Brushes
One of the easiest ways to enhance your sculpting is by using brushes. Blender has a variety of brushes built in, but you can also download specialized brush packs to speed up your work. I personally use the GSculpt Library, which comes with over 400 brushes. Using brushes from other libraries is also similar.
Just open the .blend file and append every brush, or you can append the ones you need.
To start sculpting with a brush, simply select the one you want from the brush menu, adjust its strength (I usually set it to around 0.1 or 0.3), and adjust the radius with the "F" key. Each brush has its own settings, so don’t forget to experiment to find what works best for your needs.
As you sculpt, you’ll often need to add small details like stitches or wrinkles. To do this, your mesh will need to be subdivided enough to handle these small details. If your mesh isn’t subdivided enough, you can either use the Multi-Resolution Modifier or enable Dynamic Topology for those small, micro details.
Final Thoughts for Blender Beginners
I hope you found this quick, small guide helpful and that you’re ready to start sculpting in Blender! Just keep in mind that sculpting can get pretty heavy on your computer, especially with high subdivisions. So, when you’re done sculpting and need to render your work in high quality, try using Fox Renderfarm, a leading cloud rendering service provider and Blender render farm in the CG industry. It’s a great way to speed up the rendering process and get your work done faster than ever. Plus, you can get a $25 free render coupon to start your journey.
