First Time Sculptor and Poster looking for advice, feedback and to say hey

Hey guys and Gals,

So the Personal intro:
My name is Ghostpants, and I am a brand new initiate into the 3D modelling cult… all hail the pixel Demon!
So i’ve been a long time maker and general sculptor of miniature models, typically 40k. big time converter, like if it aint converted then It aint in the army. So I have a general understanding of shapes and organics etc.

Why I am here:
I am also a 3D printer-er, and recently I have been looking into 3D printing my own models for my wargaming, so I picked up sculptris the other day and am now working towards getting some sculpts ready to print. Mostly for experimental purposes at the moment, to see what I can print and the quality.

My initial questions:

  • Is it ok to post stuff I have made in sculptris here? the forum is ‘blender’, which is a program I am working towards using, but I couldn’t find anything in the FAQ or stickies about the work needing to be blender-only?
  • How do people usually like to view WIP’s? with attached 3D model files? or with Photos?
  • IS there anywhere that it states what type of files I can upload? I cannot attach a .sc1 file, which is the file sculptris uses. Do I need to put it through some other software first? NVM I can see the list below. So best option is to turn it into a .blend file?

TLDR!
The WIP: So this is my second sculpt, the first, is not fit for the eyes of a blind man.



The Model Intentions:
The design is intended for 3D printing, the scale is 28mm, the size reference is assume this is the head of a large ogre/demon. So roughly 2x the size of a human, bulky. Was created on a Windows surface pro 2, using sculptris, a bamboo pen and a gaming keypad for shortcuts (which annoyingly has no arrow keys so I cannot zoom, which meant I struggled hard using the global grab tool trying to get closer - and consequently I fucked up the eyes placement trying to get photo angles)

My Methodology;

  • Primarily used the grab tool, draw, alt for cutting away (un-drawing? :spin:), shift for smoothing.
  • Also used the crease tool a little, to attempt to get some shaper edges on indentations.
  • Worked mostly from my head, so sorta just experimented from there.
  • I am also aware that the majority of my learning is done in the non-fine details. Hence i am focusing on getting better at the overall sculpt and not spending hours honing one eye socket. Volume of work over detail! (atleast for now)
  • This took me 2-3 Hours. Not a huge amount of CNTL-Z, other than maybe 2-3 times where I preferred the shape before I added more.

Feedback I would like in relation to my end goal:

  • How much detail should I aim for for a 28mm ogre sized figure? that is going to be 3D printed.
  • Should I focus on minimal features? aka, 2-3 eye catching pieces, say like the horns? the mouth.
  • Do you find there are a couple tools that you use for most of your work? IRL sculpting, I have a favourite tool, that realistically I use for 80% of my sculpting needs. Should I drop that habit?
  • Any other advice for someone looking to model 28mm miniatures?
  • General thoughts and tips :slight_smile:

Currently I am trying to get in 1-2 hours a day of play/sculpting. So hopefully you will see plenty of me! (and improvements ;))

Ghostpants

So another update:

Wanted to make a demonic cyclops head. 1.5 hours work, mostly rough, tried out a couple different techniques I saw. So this time for the bottom jaw I used a separate sphere, same for the teeth. Im not sure what I thought of it, I found it hard to make teeth, much prefer using the draw tool and simply adding the teeth that way. Trade off being its hard to give the gum line a nice curve? Is that not the point of the crease tool?

I liked using the additional sphere for the jaw, allowed me to move it independently, which seemed to be its biggest advantage.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]505542[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]505543[/ATTACH]

How do you guys get teeth pointed? I tried to use the flatten and pinch tool primarily.
Also considering moving to blender so long as my tablet can handle it. Only difference seems that sculptris automatically adds triangles when I sculpt whereas blender does not? But I assume its not difficult to do in blender?