Sculpting the Blender Way

By : Xury Greer

Sculpting the Blender Way

By: Xury Greer

Overview of this book

Sculpting the Blender Way is a detailed step-by-step guide for creating digital art with the latest Blender 3D sculpting features. With over 400 reference images, 18 Sculpting in Action videos, and dozens of 3D sculpture example files, this book is an invaluable resource for traditional and digital sculptors looking to try their hand at sculpting in Blender. The first part of the book will teach you how to navigate Blender's user interface and familiarize yourself with the core workflows, as well as gain an understanding of how the sculpting features work, including basic sculpting, Dyntopo, the Voxel Remesher, QuadriFlow, and Multiresolution. You’ll also learn about a wide range of brushes and all of the latest additions to the sculpting feature set, such as Face Sets, Mesh Filters, and the Cloth brush. The next chapters will show you how to customize these brushes and features to create fantastic 3D sculptures that you can share with the ever-growing Blender community. By the end of this book, you'll have gained a complete understanding of the core sculpting workflows and be able to use Blender to bring your digital characters to life.

Preface

Who this book is for

What this book covers

To get the most out of this book

Download the example files

Sculpting in Action

Download the color images

Conventions used

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Chapter 1: Exploring Blender's User Interface for Sculpting

Technical requirements

Installing Blender

Understanding Blender's user interface

Expanding and collapsing the Toolbar and the Sidebar

Exploring the viewport shading modes

Customizing solid shading mode with the pop-over menu

Using viewport overlays

Navigating the 3D Viewport

Setting up your graphics tablet's stylus buttons

Free Chapter

Chapter 2: Overview of Blender's Sculpting Workflows

Technical requirements

Understanding the components of a 3D sculpture

Pushing polys with the basic sculpting mode

Discovering the limitations of the basic sculpting mode

Creating dynamic topology with Dyntopo

Practicing the basics of the Voxel Remesher

Using the Voxel Remesher in a low-to-high detail workflow

Exploring the most powerful sculpting mode – multiresolution

Chapter 3: Sculpting a Simple Character Head with Basic Brushes

Technical requirements

Creating the large forms of the head with the Grab brush

Using masks to add the neck and ears

Building up the nose and brow with the Clay Strips brush

Smoothing the lumpy and jagged surfaces of the sculpture

Creating a bulbous nose and cheeks with the Inflate brush

Adding basic eyes and eyelids to the character

Adding detail to the ears with the Crease brush

Creating the mouth with the Draw Sharp brush

Sharpening details with the Pinch brush

Chapter 4: How to Make a Base Mesh for a 3D Sculpture

Technical requirements

Creating and transforming primitive objects

Creating a base mesh with box modeling

Using the Skin modifier to turn wireframe structures into thick skins

Using Metaballs to build blob-like 3D forms

Inserting meshes and cutting holes with Booleans

Using the Lasso Trim tool to add and remove geometry

Making sure our base mesh is ready for sculpting

Chapter 5: Learning the Power of Subdivision and the Multiresolution Workflow

Technical requirements

An overview of topology

Generating an all-quad mesh with QuadriFlow

Exploring subdivision surfaces

Understanding when you're ready for multiresolution

Using the Multiresolution modifier

Recapturing details from the previous mesh

Changing resolution for the appropriate details

Chapter 6: Using Advanced Features and Customizing the Sculpting Brushes

Technical requirements

Using custom falloff

Exploring custom stroke options

Setting up custom alpha textures

Using face sets as automatic masks

Cleaving off flat sections with the Line Project tool

Creating advanced masks with Sculpt Expand

Posing fingers with the Pose brush

Chapter 7: Making Eyeballs

Technical requirements

Creating standard clay eyeballs

Adding color to the eyeballs

Adding depth and realism to the eyeballs

Creating insect eyeballs with extrusion tools

Creating a cartoon eyeball using a Lattice

Creating a stylized anime eye

Aiming the eyeballs with Constraints

Chapter 8: Making Accessories and Clothing

Technical requirements

Making earrings

Using Mask Extract to make a shirt

Using the Cloth brush to add wrinkles to the shirt

Using the Cloth Filter to create a collar for the shirt

Preparing a shirt mesh for a cloth simulation

Simulating cloth to wrap a shirt around a character

Sculpting a hat with Radial Symmetry

Chapter 9: Creating Teeth, Eyebrows, and Hair

Technical requirements

Creating tusks and teeth for an orc

Creating stylized mesh eyebrows with modifiers

Creating realistic eyebrows with hair particles

Extracting hair from the scalp

Visualizing the silhouette of sculpted hair

Roughing out the shape of sculpted hair

Adding surface details to sculpted hair

Creating long flowing hair with curves

Chapter 10: Rendering Sculptures for Your Portfolio

Technical requirements

Setting up Rendered mode

Adding three-point lighting to the scene

Lighting up the environment with an HDRI

Creating a clay material for the sculpture

Using a camera to render the sculpture

Setting up a turntable for a 360-degree render

Exporting the final render

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To get the most out of this book

You will need an internet connection to download the latest version of Blender and the source files for the projects (an internet connection is not required after downloading the software and the files).

Blender requires about 670 MB of storage space to install. The project files in this book are approximately 1.1 GB all together (you do not need to download them all at once). It's a good idea to have at least 1 GB of additional free storage so that you can create your own 3D sculptures and renders. In total, about 3 GB of space should be enough for everything covered in this book.

This book has been tested for Blender 2.93 LTS. Blender 3.0 was released shortly before this book's publication and is also compatible, although there are some very subtle user interface differences from the reference images. Future Blender releases should remain compatible as well, however the Blender Foundation is always looking for ways to improve software.

A graphics tablet with pressure sensitivity is highly recommended for following along with this book.

A graphics card from Nvidia is recommended for the best experience in Chapter 10, Rendering Sculptures for Your Portfolio, although the Blender Foundation is actively working to support graphics cards from other brands.

The Blender Foundation maintains several versions of Blender at the same time. Version 2.93 LTS is a Long-term Support release for users who want the most stable version of the software. You can download it here: https://www.blender.org/download/lts/2-93/.

Version 3.0 is the latest release with new features. This cutting-edge version has not been available as long as the LTS version, so some bugs may be present. You can download it here: https://www.blender.org/download/.

Either version of Blender will be perfect for following along in this book. However, version 3.0 or later is recommended for following along with Chapter 10, Rendering Sculptures for Your Portfolio, since there have been major performance improvements for the Cycles render engine.

Sculpting the Blender Way

By : Xury Greer

Sculpting the Blender Way

By: Xury Greer

Overview of this book

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To get the most out of this book