Mignola’s HELLBOY Digital Sculpture

Mike Mignola’s HELLBOY, digitally sculpted on the iPad Pro with Nomad Sculpt.

I’m having a lot of fun digitally sculpting and learning a lot as I go. I’m self-taught, so I don’t know if I’m doing things the ”right” way, or even if some of these pieces will be printable with a 3D printer, but right now I’m having a blast and enjoying how these are coming out.

Plus I like sitting on the couch and sculpting without having to unpack or clean up any tools. That said, I feel like working this way is whetting my appetite and giving me ideas for my next traditionally sculpted project.

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DIGITAL SCULPTING

This month I decided to finally try and teach myself digital sculpting. There are a lot of things I think I could be doing, like sculpting at a smaller scale, or making props that would be more difficult to accomplish traditionally. I was curious about Zbrush (expensive, but a free trial is available), Blender (free!), and NomadSculpt, which I’d already loaded onto my iPad. After asking Twitter, I decided I was going to try Blender and got through about three Youtube tutorials before I recognized some of the controls as being similar to NomadSculpt. Between the ease of use and the sensitivity of the Apple Pencil, I just gravitated toward NomadSculpt.

Someone once told me a traditional sculptor learning digital sculpting is like a pianist learning the saxophone: same notes, different instrument. I’ve been at three weeks now and I have been having a blast. Here are some of the things I’ve worked on. Expect to see more soon.