Help with Volvagia Fan art

Hi everyone!
I’m working on a fan art of Volvagia sculpt from the legend of zelda, but I cannot get with a decent fire mane.
Any tips on how to make/sculpt/model a decent looking fire? I intend to apply a texture afterwards and color it in a cartoonish style so the fire simulation is not an option.

Thank you all in advance!


Before I share my advice, I’d like to say that the overall sculpt so far is pretty good. The muscle definition in the arms could be dialed down a tad for such a cartoonish style, and I assume you’ve yet to finish sculpting the horns.

Now for the advice. Perhaps instead of sculpting the mane as one unified piece from the start, you create several candle-shaped meshes, and make some irregularities in each mesh how you see fit. Soft selection, lattices, sculpting, all are viable options.

Next you would place these candle meshes into the pattern you see fit resembling flame, adjusting the meshes where needed. A good reference (at least in my opinion for what you’re doing) would be Super Saiyan hair from Dragon Ball Z.

Picture said hair as not one solid piece, but every spike is its own individual mesh. Apply that to Volvagia’s mane to your discrepency, and you should get a good result. If you need them to blend also, using boolean operators on the pieces and then sculpting afterwards is an option.

Try to sculpt longer, thinner fingers of flame rather than small peaks from a large mass :slight_smile:

Thank you all for the comments, they worked perfectly:
Here is the finished model thread!