My hat was done with Sculptris.

Good, capable start. Good on you. You have a future in organic modeling.

 Thanks, LoL. I was messing around with Multires and going by a tutorial to learn baking - but the actual baking didn't come out quite well so I just kept messing with the hi-res model.

I've since lowered the poly count with Meshlab and now attempting to learn to use the paint aspect of Blender. =D

 It was a monster learning how to get texture paint to work.

Nothing's easy about Blender, but doesn't it feel awesome when you do nut it out??!? Well done - that looks great.
You might turn on Set Smooth under Links and Material [F9] if you want to get rid of that polygon mesh look.

 Thanks, Robyn and thanks for the advice.

It started off as a Multires on level 9 (anything higher and Blender became a slide show) so that I could easily 'draw' in the details (like Sculptris) but the model was much too heavy to work with so I ran it through Meshlab for quadric decimation to lower the poly count to about one fourth of what it had.

I'll give 'Set Smooth' a go and see what it does but Blender was really slowing down while trying to manipulate and paint this.

I think it's because the base material was saved as a JPEG and the base targa, created in Blender was set to 800 X 800.

The part that threw me off about texture paint was not DE-selecting my model before leaving Edit mode into Texture Paint mode which resulted in model appearing as an empty outline shape, without form, and filled in with the solid default color for the new targa I opened.

For those also learning and Googling this up, the following three tuts that I found after the fact were very well written and in depth.

[ http://www.katsbits.com/tutorials/blender/blender-basics-applying-material-texture-images.php

](http://www.katsbits.com/tutorials/blender/blender-basics-applying-material-texture-images.php)http://www.katsbits.com/tutorials/blender/blender-basics-unwrapping-uvw-maps.php

http://www.katsbits.com/tutorials/textures/make-better-textures-correct-size-and-power-of-two.php

Midnight, you never want to start sculpting by cranking up the resolution. You want to start at the lowest level and work it over as much as possible before moving to the next, and the same there, work it over as completely as possible, then move to the next level, rinse, wash, repeat.

Don't be afraid to "over sculpt" something at a low resolution, because you can always step back down to that level and smooth it out if its too strong but more importantly, just adding the next level of subdivision is going to smooth the mesh out and soften the details some.

You'll find if you start by jacking your resolution way up straight outta the gate, it often leads to wonky/lumpy sculpts. Its not something you have to consider in SculpTris, because of the adaptive nature of the program, but in "traditional" [wow, 2 years ago, who'd of thought there'd even be such a thing as "traditional" in terms of sculpting?!?] sculpting, you want to make the most of each level before moving on.

Ultimately, I'd like to see a mixture of the two sculpting methods, something that would allow you to use the multi-res quads only standard style sculpting as far as you can/need/want to, then switching over to an adaptive method for getting even finer details in there.

Couple helpful hot keys I wish I'd have run across earlier than I did....

CTRL+SHFT+RMB = Lets you draw a box around part of your mesh, and its hides everything outside the box. Major performance boost, however, symmetry does not carry over to the hidden parts, so you need to be careful. ALT+H reveals the hidden part of the mesh

ALT+B = Again, lets you border select a part of the mesh and hides the rest, minor performance increase, but symmetry does carry over to the hidden parts. Mainly useful for getting into hard to see places, rather than boosting performance. ALT+B reveals the hidden parts.

Also, you looked in the mirror lately, I'll bet your head is starting to stretch with all the 3d you've stuffed in there over the last month, might pop if you're not careful.   Reckon you've played with more apps in the last month than I have in my entire time in 3D.

 Heh heh.  Yeah, I'm giving everything a go to see what I adapt to the easiest and is going to be the most useful for me in the long run. I think, however, as you've demonstrated here, with software superseding software, taking a step back is mostly for the challenge and the learning experience.

As interesting as it was to see sculpting done in Blender and learn more how to get around in Blender by practicing sculpting - Sculptris is more practical for that aspect. Hopefully Blender will take note and keep its sculpting setup up to date along with Sculptris's progress.

But still, there's going to be a part of Blender that Blender does better than anything else I've tried. That's how all the software I've tried so far has been - each program tends to have that one aspect that I feel more comfortable with than other programs with the similar aspect.

Thanks for the insight, Warlock and I'll have to keep that ALT + B hot key in mind.  I was just recently trying to figure out how to hide things in Mod Tools. =D

Looks good for a first try. I'd like to see what else you're good at. My only criticism is that the eyes have ridges around them instead of being 'inset' into the face. In other words, the cheekbones should be flat.

I have to disagree with you on that., I think Blenders sculpting tools are up to date, and I don't see adaptive sculpting as the "up to date" or "the way forward" or a "replacement" at all.

SculpTris, you pretty much move forward, its very linear, you start with your base mesh, you shape it, you add details, you're done. Taking out details, or making major base level changes at later stages of the sculpt can be tricky.

With a more traditional multi res approach to sculpting, you can always step back down one, two, three, however many levels you have, make radical changes, all while keeping the details of your highest resolution, mostly, if not completely, intact. You also have the freedom to step down from the highest detail level, delete the higher level and then have another go at it you're not liking where its headed.

While I quite like SculpTris approach, its very intuitive and can be a very handle tool, I don't think I'd ever want to see that approach as the mainstream, as I think multi res is far more flexible. Like I said in my other post, I see adaptive subdivison sculpting's greatest value at the back end as a final detail pass, where you don't need to increase detail across the whole mesh, but you need to work some wrinkles into the face, some stitches into the clothing, etc. Adaptive sculpting would be great, after you've used a polygon reduction tool to knock some of the excess polys out of your sculpt but still want to work in some more detail.

That's my two cents on the state of sculpting.

 I see what you're saying. Sculptris is stuck at one resolution making it trickier to process models compatible with interactive media where as with res layers in the traditional way allows for dropping back poly count or evening baking onto lower res to get the 'sculpted' effect without all of the weight.

I guess the same could be said for traditional weight painting over 3D-specific painters as you have more control and more options to go backwards and correct your textures. =)

Dramaking,

Yeah, that was a quickie model....the ridges around the eyes were meant to be glasses frames but decided I didn't want the frames to be that thick so didn't color them in completely. =D

This one I did afterwards in Sculptris and Mod Tools. Where I  inset and flattened the eyes a bit more.

Well you can always retopoligize your sculptris models. I do this. It lets you model with out worrying about edge loops and mesh density etc. Then when you are done you lay down a  more efficient mesh. 3d-coat has really great retopo tools. But warlock is right it is easier to manipulate a low density mesh. Also if you are looking for some good modeling tuts check out. http://www.nevercenter.com/silo/videos/tutorials/
The tuts are done with Silo but hey can apply to most box/mesh  modelers. The Minotaur tut is really good.

Hey, those are some awesome designs! I've got Silo (discovery mode) so I might just get some exercise in that.

Thanks for linking, these tuts don't come up in Google searches very easily.

Quote - Nothing's easy about Blender, but doesn't it feel awesome when you do nut it out??!? Well done - that looks great.

I'll seconds that. I have only been using it for a while and i've been enjoying it quite a lot. It is really hard to get to grips with.. I cant model anything in the organics reigon but I have created some small coughsMasterpeices lol.

Quote - You might turn on Set Smooth under Links and Material [F9] if you want to get rid of that polygon mesh look.

Another thing that you can use to sort this problem out is to use a "Subsurf" from the modifiers drop down when you are in "object mode"

 Thanks for the info, Spike. =)