Digital 3d Sculpture

Finally, it finally feels like art is possible in 3d on the computer.  Sure I've made 3d films on the computer.  But the real feeling of making art is hard to achieve digitally.  The tools are always getting in the way.  Drawing is getting pretty good digitally.

But 3d has always been a really difficult problem to crack.  There is so much technical thought that goes into creating the 3d that it is difficult to get into a real flow.

But a new version of the program Z-Brush has really brought 3d into the realm of art.  I was able to bring my windows tablet computer into an art gallery today do 3d sketches of the sculptures right there in the gallery.

The process is a lot like working with real clay. In previous versions of 3d sculpting, anything that felt like 3d clay only felt like 3d clay for a few moments.  It would quickly distort and turn into polygons again.  A new feature of Z-Brush called Dynamesh allows you to overcome this barrier whenever it feels like it is about to impede your progress.

I am still working how to sculpt in the computer, and the type of work flows that I should be using, so the results still are not spot on, but it is just like drawing, in that I will need to do it a lot to get good.

It is really weird compared to life drawing in that it needs to be right from all angles.  This was one of the first times that I actually felt like a 3d display would have been immensely useful to me.


Kyler