When to use pinch vs crease vs draw sharp?

And should sculpting have its own main support category?

When to use clay vs clay strips? When to use clay strips in the first place? What are the real world inspirations for each sculpt tool and use case?

There are no rules at all when it comes to what sculpting brush to use where. It’s purely a case of individual preference and artist sculpting style/approach.

Clay strips is just a modified clay brush that leaves a sharper impression. Some artists like the smooth result of clay and others like the surface noise that clay strips can leave behind.

The real world inspiration comes from Ryan Kingslien’s traditional sculpting background and his early involvement in the development of the Zbrush clay brushes.

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Clay strips brush with increased tip roundesss for building smooth volume, and low or default tip roundness for sharp rectangle “clay” surface with volume, and clay brush similarly but in a low brush strength and also due to the smooth option (but this is somehow more noticeable in a low to high polygon surface but also subjective to brush size rather) notice that it makes it loose volume instead of adding, with medium to high strength behaves as expected yet not “clay” enough to me, @Musashidan maybe you know what I mean since you have used ZBrush way more than me…

Draw sharp is just a quick preset for the sharp falloff profile, draw and sharp is the same brush but different falloff, before you had to change the falloff everytime and/or make a second brush preset for the draw brush…

Crease is like a combination of pinch and draw sharp…

I recommend sometimes using draw and pinch separately because the pinch from the crease can be too strong or little and/or the stroke not deep enough therefore overdoing it, so add some crease then use draw or pinch to enhance it or just crease if the stroke result is enough.

And without the two improved clay brushes build from Pablo dobarro I don’t know how well it differs in functionality since is similar or inspired to the ZBrush clay brushes. Fingers crossed about when the hell the devs will merge that patch after the brush engine refactor and other things is done…

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