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Been a while since I've done any sort of blog/project log on here, but as I'm currently diving into digital sculpting I figured I'd chronicle the process a bit. The aim is twofold, to log any pregress I actually make, and to hopefully glean some wisdom from the Dakka hivemind members that have experience in this area.

I've used Blender quite a bit in the past for rigging and reposing STLs, but never really glanced at the sculpting tab until a few days ago. Following some basic tutorials, I made a little headway towards getting some basic shapes down, before making my usual mistake and trying to walk before I could run, attempting to sculpt a character likeness and promptly hitting a brick wall and accompanying loss of motivation. It wasn't dreadful for a first effort, but it was far enough from 'good' that I very nearly gave up. A day later though, I dove back into tutorial town on Youtube and tried to slow down a little, ending day 3 with a fairly good understanding of the various tools Blender had to offer, and the beginnings of a decent head mesh to work from.

Which brings us to day 4, and the first sculpt that I am actually going to attempt to print. It's still obviously a very amateurish effort, but close enough to what I was going for that I should at least have fun printing and painting it up, blatant flaws and all. I learned a lot on actually 'finishing' this, and I am actually fairly pleased with the results.



This whole design basically evolved from playing with my head mesh, grabbing and deforming parts of the face until I got a feel for a character, which happened when I hit upon the smirk. From there came the scars, the raggedy cloth cap (also sculpting hair seems hard...) and the torn coat, and I figure he's probably a pirate or bandit Half-elf who's just spied his next mark. I was going for a very accentuated, stylised and over-the-top look for the facial features, partly to give me an excuse for some rough edges and partly because it seems just a more fun way to approach things than going for a very realistic look.

If I were doing a second take of this guy, I'd definitely get the collar in place before the hanging parts of the hat so I could drape them properly, rather than the haphazard resculpting after the fact, and I've just noticed what a mess the left upper eyelid is, so that's something to revisit. That. and just generally having a plan rather than winging it. Nonetheless, baby steps, and I'm going to run this off the printer tomorrow and get some paint on it, just for the sake of taking that first step.

edit. also, might as well ask if anyone knows a better way to get screengrabs of 3d models? This is just a Meshmixer texture and a little photoshop to up the contrast, but it's not exactly tremendously clear.

In the mean time, any feedback and constructive criticism are very much welcome, I still feel quite out of my depth so any expertise is highly appreciated! Thanks for taking a look, hopefully I will return soon with more bald guys, or else I'll have figured out a good way to do hair and thus stopped tearing my own out in the attempt!

He lives! Aforementioned issues aside, it really is quite cool to print something I made from scratch rather than just kitbashing or reposing and fixing. Looking forward to paintinng him up, though I've also immediately clocked that if I want to sculpt for minis, I'm going to have to exaggerate things like the scars a lot more, they show up at this scale but not on a mini's head.

For some reason I think he should speak like Owen Wilson good work on the from-scratching. I feel super happy in smooshing existing stuff together, but Definately can’t start from nothing.

Full of character - well done!