Ollie's Sculpting Journey Sketchbook from beginner


using ucupaint to bake pointiness. using two layers to darken cracks and lighten highlights using pointiness map. gives a more painted feel

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Hell yeah. Sculpt 75 renders. Really liked this one. Maybe I should have drawn or sculpted the eyebrows more. Can experiment with baking maps on future sculpts. need some free painterly brushes for blender…

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Sculpt 76. Trying to remake Sunhee by Alejandro Alvarez. My main goal for this one is to work on the textures, particularly around the eyes and maybe to do some skin sculpting and bake it to normals. The eyes and skin on the original work look very soft and i wonder how that is achieved…


They provided a reference sheet. I’m growing in confidence with the sculpting tools at this point but i’m not sure if these references are orthogonal

Looks like they are both included. If you look at the rows of faces to the bottom right, the top row looks like perspective and the bottom is orthogonal.

For the shape:
The final, retopologized mesh should not have any more polygon density than it needs to capture the shape, as any extra polygon on the base mesh is an opportunity for a lump.

For the rendering:
Subsurface scattering for realistic skin translucency and wide light sources for soft shadows.

oh yeah. Damn, i used the perspective ones to sculp in orthogonal mode…

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Oh crap. They aren’t persp and orthog. They’re v01 and v02. I’ve just resculpted and I prefer the first version. good thing I made a copy

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Retopology is still giving me grief. the snapping system doesnty work as it should. Regardless, i have good enough topology for this.

Still think I might have sculpted orthogonal from a perspective reference. oh well. time to UV and the nget to the main focus - texturing

Are there any good assetized skin brushes?

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This face doesn’t look right at all yet it matches the references. How annoying

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Her eyes don’t quite match the image. Look at the top lid, it has a slightly sharper slope towards the nose, giving her slightly more squarish eyes.

The lack of eyelashes and eyebrows maybe?

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thats but i think its more than that. the face looks wierd all around. increasingly sure the references are taken from a 85-100mm perspective and i sculpted them in orthographic, making the eyes and features too big. can’t be bothered to redo this one atm


This is orthographic view and she looks fine here. switch to perspective and awful. oh well. i’ve learnt…

Found some free skin brushes. Anyone else using them because they don’t have thumbnails in the asset library

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Yeah, that’s the reason why I try not to do anything in ortho perspective when I can help it.

As is, you’re pretty close. Maybe try adding some volume to the cheeks, and widen the chin a bit.

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Colour, roughness and then subsurf maps. Maybe i’m overdoing it. She looks like a child that’s been crying…

Perhaps this is one to return to or just let go. I think I need to watch a lot of skin tutorials.

Also, how do I fix the sharp edge of the eyes?

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The border of the eyelids shouldn’t just end by disappearing into the eye. There should be a bit of thickness to the eyelid.

This can be done easily after retopology. If you have a proper edge loop circling the eye, you can simply move it forward a little bit to create that border. And if more faces are needed, you can add loop cuts easily too.

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Sculpt 77 freestyle. About 20-30 mins in total. Skin texture from blenderkit.

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ugh feels like going backwards.

The eyes. I haven’t done any hooded eyes yet. it’s really putting me off. this looks like an asian man… and not victorian railway engineer magnus volk.


Clay brush is my friend.

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Sculpt 79 Peter Parker