Notes from the studio.
Sculpting technique, honest tool comparisons, and engine notes from the team building Re:Form — written for 3D artists, not search engines (mostly).
Hard Surface Sculpting: Clean Edges, Flat Planes, Real Cuts
How to sculpt hard surface forms like armor, weapons and props: planes, clip cuts, booleans, crisp edges and panel lines, step by step, in a browser or desktop tool.
What's New in Re:Form 0.9.0 Alpha: A New Clay Brush, Viewport Occlusion and Clip Lasso
Re:Form 0.9.0 Alpha is the biggest release yet. A smooth new Clay brush, ambient occlusion in the viewport and in renders, Clip Lasso with clean caps, a shortcut bar, Reflow that finds the eyes, mouth and ears by itself, cleaner Remesh edges, Spherize, render shading choices, a Timeline kept in every save and a much faster start.
How to Sculpt a Face in 3D: Eyes, Nose, Mouth, Ears
How to sculpt a realistic face in 3D: where the features sit, how to build eyes, nose, mouth and ears on the skull, and how to fix a face that looks wrong.
Polypaint and Vertex Painting in Sculpting, Explained
Vertex painting stores color on the mesh itself, with no UVs or texture files. How polypaint works in ZBrush, Blender, Nomad Sculpt and Re:Form, and when to bake it.
Best 3D Sculpting Software for Beginners (2026)
The best 3D sculpting software for beginners in 2026, compared on price, hardware, and learning curve: Blender, ZBrush, Nomad Sculpt, and Re:Form.
What's New in Re:Form 0.8.10 Alpha: Live Topology to 12 Million and a Faster Start
Re:Form 0.8.10 Alpha raises the Free plan to 12.5 million triangles, takes Live Topology to 12 million triangles on every plan, puts STL on the Free plan, starts faster, saves without long freezes, adds glowing paint and paint shapes, and tidies the studio.
Mudbox Alternatives in 2026: Where to Go After Autodesk
Autodesk stops selling Mudbox subscriptions on November 7, 2026. Here are the sculpting tools that replace it, what each costs, and how to move your files.
What's New in Re:Form 0.8.9 Alpha: Ten Languages and More
Re:Form 0.8.9 Alpha speaks ten more languages, explains every Pro limit in plain words, shows if your work is saved, and adds a smooth camera and a Pose tool.
How Much Does ZBrush Cost in 2026? (And Is It Free?)
ZBrush costs $49/month or $399/year as of October 2026. Every plan, the $60 student license, the free iPad tier, and the cheaper ways to sculpt, checked.
Sculptris Alternatives in 2026: What to Use Instead
Sculptris is long gone, and its successor ZBrushCoreMini was retired in 2025. Here are the free and cheap tools that do what Sculptris did, as of October 2026.
Meshmixer Alternatives in 2026: What Replaces Each Tool
Meshmixer is no longer developed. Here is what replaces each of its jobs in 2026, from Make Solid and Hollow to supports and sculpting, and what each tool costs.
What's New in Re:Form 0.8.8 Alpha: History, Remix and the Gallery
Re:Form 0.8.8 Alpha records how every sculpt is made, adds a History slider, share links that play the sculpt back, Remix, an embeddable 3D viewer and gallery submissions.
How to Hollow a 3D Model for Resin Printing
How to hollow a 3D model for resin printing: wall thickness, drain hole size and placement, slicer vs sculpting-tool hollowing, and a browser workflow in Re:Form.
Symmetry in 3D Sculpting: How It Works, When to Break It
How symmetry works in 3D sculpting — mirror planes, radial and poseable symmetry, why it stops working, how to fix it in ZBrush, Blender, Nomad and Re:Form.
How to Sculpt Cloth Folds and Clothing in 3D
Sculpted clothes look fake when folds are drawn on instead of hung from tension points. A browser workflow for folds, fabric weight, seams and hems by hand.
Dynamic Topology Explained: Dyntopo, Sculptris Pro & More
What dynamic topology does in 3D sculpting, how Blender's Dyntopo, ZBrush's Sculptris Pro and Nomad's DynTopo differ, and when to use remesh or subdivision.
What's New in Re:Form 0.8.7 Alpha: Live Topology
Re:Form 0.8.7 Alpha adds Live Topology, which puts triangles only where you sculpt, plus undo at any mesh size, truer pen strokes and a faster Remesh.
How to Learn 3D Sculpting: A 30-Day Practice Plan
A 30-day plan for learning 3D sculpting from zero — what to practice each week, which three brushes to start with, free software options, and the mistakes to skip.
How to Sculpt Hair in 3D: Clumps, Flow and Strands
How to sculpt hair in 3D as solid clumps instead of strands — blocking the mass, splitting it into locks, cutting flow lines, and building braids and ropes from curves.
What's New in Re:Form 0.8.6 Alpha
Re:Form 0.8.6 Alpha gives Blockout four modes — Strokes, a precise Curve tool and Sketch for drawn silhouettes — makes Mesh Sets on Finish and poses them with a new Pose tool, and adds Mask Expand, Close holes, Gradient Fill, Depth / Normal / Silhouette renders, a viewport background setting, crash recovery, big-mesh Remesh and a friendly notice on phones.
What's New in Re:Form 0.8.5 Alpha
Re:Form 0.8.5 Alpha makes Blockout quicker and easier to steer, gives every brush an alpha Invert and a capture-from-the-viewport with a live preview, turns Rake and Carve with your stroke, lets Relax smooth pinch points, brings the start screen and project tiles into light mode, adds a viewport grey setting, and makes brush export a Pro feature.
What's New in Re:Form 0.8.4 Alpha
Re:Form 0.8.4 Alpha adds Blockout, a tool for drawing rough form in strokes of volume that you edit as curves and finish into a mesh, plus a one-tooth Carve, a smoother Rake and Fissure 02, an opposite for Fill, and fixes from tester feedback.
What's New in Re:Form 0.8.3 Alpha
Re:Form 0.8.3 Alpha keeps your detail when you step down a subdivision level, makes Clip Rect and Clip Circle cut for real at any mesh size, adds a Free share limit with unlimited shares on Pro, fixes 27 bugs found in a full audit, and adds two themes.
What's New in Re:Form 0.8.2 Alpha
Re:Form 0.8.2 Alpha adds Symmetry Y and Z in any combination, rebuilds the share viewer to match the app, fixes the remesh seam, and adds a cone primitive.
What's New in Re:Form 0.8.1 Alpha
Re:Form 0.8.1 Alpha: share a sculpt as a link anyone can open, mask and paint by curvature or occlusion, Flip normals and Weld vertices, a pen pressure response curve, alpha adjustments and viewport capture, a combined transform gizmo, faster saves, and a pile of fixes.
Polygroups Explained: What They Are and When to Use Them
Polygroups split one mesh into colored regions you can hide, mask and split in a click. How they work in ZBrush, Blender Face Sets, Nomad Sculpt and Re:Form.
What's New in Re:Form 0.8.0 Alpha
Re:Form 0.8.0 Alpha: projects save with your account, Extract and Shell Extrude turn a mask into new pieces, Remesh and Extract are exactly symmetric, mask filters run on the GPU at any density, the mask survives every subdivide, Fit centres on mass, a render Brightness slider, and .clay files keep every layer.
Masking in 3D Sculpting: What It's Actually For
Masks protect finished geometry from your next stroke — and then build new geometry from it. How masking works in ZBrush, Blender, Nomad Sculpt and Re:Form.
What's New in Re:Form: 0.7.6 to 0.7.9 Alpha
Re:Form 0.7.6–0.7.9 Alpha: session timelapses, Clip brushes that cut for real, four mask shapes, Backface, a Silhouette switch, one undo timeline and saved brushes on Free.
Nomad Sculpt vs ZBrush for iPad: Which to Buy (2026)
Nomad Sculpt is $19.99 once; ZBrush for iPad is $89.99 a year. A September 2026 comparison of price, brushes, remeshing, formats and who each iPad sculpting app fits.
What's New in Re:Form: 0.7.2 to 0.7.5 Alpha
Re:Form 0.7.2–0.7.5 Alpha: four Clip brushes, pen and touch input, Project paint, HDRI render backgrounds, a remesh that keeps sharp edges, and 8K Pro renders.
Sculpting on a Tablet in the Browser: Pen Pressure, Palm Rejection and Touch
Re:Form 0.7.3 Alpha adds real tablet support — pen pressure on strength or size, palm rejection, finger gestures for orbit and pan, a touch layout, and a full-window render view. Which tablets work, how to set it up, and what to expect.
How to Sculpt Hands in 3D (Without the Glove Look)
Hands are where good sculpts fall apart. A practical browser workflow — block the mitten, find the knuckle arc, split the fingers last, and pose without a rig.
How to Fix a 3D Model for Printing (Watertight Meshes)
Holes, flipped normals, floating parts, thin walls: why models fail in the slicer, how to check a mesh before printing, and which repair tools still work.
3D Sculpting on a Chromebook: What Works in 2026
Chromebooks can't install ZBrush and struggle with Blender, but WebGPU changed the story. What actually works for 3D sculpting on ChromeOS, and how to check yours.
WebGPU Not Working? A Fix-It Guide
WebGPU not supported in your browser? Here's how to read chrome://gpu, turn hardware acceleration back on, fix drivers and flags, and get 3D running in a tab.
3D Sculpting on Linux: What Actually Works in 2026
ZBrush still has no Linux build. Here's what Linux artists can actually sculpt with in 2026 — Blender, 3DCoat, and browser sculpting now that WebGPU has landed.
Online 3D Modeling: Browser Tools That Work in 2026
A verified 2026 guide to 3D modeling in a browser — Tinkercad, Onshape, Womp, Spline, Vectary and browser sculpting. What each one does, and what each costs.
ZBrush vs Blender for Sculpting in 2026
ZBrush costs $399 a year, Blender costs nothing. A verified 2026 comparison of brushes, polygon ceilings, learning curve, and 3D printing — plus who each one fits.
What's New in Re:Form: the 0.7 Alpha Release
Re:Form 0.6.8 and 0.7.0 Alpha in full — Split loose parts, MP4 turntables at 2048 px, denoised beauty renders, undoable object mode, and 22 new docs.
How to Sculpt a Character in 3D: Full-Body Workflow
A full-body 3D character sculpting workflow for beginners — proportion landmarks, blocking limbs from one mass, remeshing, posing without a rig, and export.
Sculpt to Game Engine: Unity and Unreal
How to take a browser sculpt into Unity or Unreal — which format each engine reads, what Nanite changes, the scale numbers that matter, and when you still need retopology.
Why Your Sculpt Looks Lumpy (And How to Fix It)
Lumpy 3D sculpts come from a short list of causes — brush strength, polygon density, and stroke habits. How to diagnose which one you have, and fix it.
Sculpt Layers Explained: The Two Kinds You'll Meet
Sculpt layers means two different things depending on the tool. What deformation layers and part layers each do, which apps have which, and when each matters.
How Many Polygons Do You Actually Need?
Triangle counts explained for sculpting, 3D printing and game engines — what subdivision costs, what a printer can resolve, and where budgets stop mattering.
From Browser Sculpt to Blender: A Clean Handoff
How to move a browser sculpt into Blender without breaking scale, orientation, or detail — which format to export, what each one drops, and what to fix on arrival.
How to Sculpt a Head in 3D: A Beginner's Workflow
A step-by-step workflow for sculpting a human head in 3D — the proportion landmarks that matter, the order to block forms, and how to check your own work.
SculptGL in 2026: What It Is and What to Use Now
SculptGL still runs free in any browser, but its creator archived the project in January 2026. What it does, where it stops, and what to sculpt in next.
What's New in Re:Form: the 0.6 Alpha Series
Everything that shipped in Re:Form 0.6 Alpha — the project browser, dated autosaves, the Carve brush, per-view reference images, real-world millimeters, a Z-up world, turntable renders, and the 0.6.7 brush-feel overhaul.
Retopology vs Remeshing: What's the Difference?
Retopology and remeshing get used interchangeably and mean different things. What each one does, when a sculpt actually needs either, and how to skip both.
3D Sculpting on a Mac: Your Options in 2026
What 3D sculpting on a Mac actually costs and requires in 2026 — ZBrush, Blender, Nomad's desktop beta, and browser sculpting on Safari 26 or Chrome.
3D Sculpting Brushes Explained: What Each Does
A plain guide to the sculpting brushes every tool ships — Draw, Clay, Crease, Flatten, Scrape, Pinch, Grab and the rest — what each does and when to reach for it.
Do You Need a Drawing Tablet for 3D Sculpting?
Can you sculpt in 3D with a mouse? What a pen tablet actually changes, what it doesn't, and the brush settings that give you clean strokes without pressure.
Sculpting vs Polygon Modeling: Which to Learn?
Digital sculpting vs polygon modeling explained — how each one works, what they're actually for, which to learn first, and how the two fit together in one pipeline.
Sculpting Tabletop Miniatures in Your Browser
A full browser workflow for sculpting 28mm and 32mm tabletop miniatures — scale, detail budgets, print-safe geometry, export, and the IP rules that matter.
OBJ vs STL vs GLB vs FBX: Which Format When?
A plain guide to the four 3D file formats you actually meet. What OBJ, STL, GLB, and FBX each carry, what they silently drop, and which one to export today.
3D Sculpting on a Low-End PC (No Gaming GPU)
Can you sculpt in 3D without a good graphics card? The verified answer for low-end laptops, integrated GPUs, and Chromebooks — plus a browser-based option.
Re:Form vs Blender for Sculpting (2026)
Re:Form vs Blender for 3D sculpting in 2026, with verified facts. Where a free browser sculptor beats an all-in-one giant, and where Blender wins outright.
What Is WebGPU? A Plain-English Guide for 3D Artists
Plain-English WebGPU guide for 3D artists — how it differs from WebGL, which browsers support it in 2026, and why million-triangle sculpting now works in a tab.
Re:Form vs ZBrush (2026): An Honest Comparison
Re:Form vs ZBrush in 2026, with verified prices and features. Where a free browser sculptor beats the industry standard, and where it honestly does not.
Nomad Sculpt on PC? Here's the Browser Alternative (2026)
Does Nomad Sculpt run on PC? The verified answer as of July 2026 — free Windows/macOS beta, web demo status — plus Re:Form, a browser-based desktop option.
7 Free ZBrush Alternatives: What Works and What's Dead (2026)
Seven free ZBrush alternatives checked for 2026 — which still work and which are dead: Blender, Re:Form, SculptGL, Nomad's web demo, and why Sculptris is out.
Your First 3D Sculpt: A Beginner's Guide (Free, In-Browser)
Learn 3D sculpting for beginners, step by step, free in your desktop browser. Navigation, blocking forms, symmetry, layers, and exporting your first sculpt.
Sculpt for 3D Printing in Your Browser: STL Without ZBrush
Sculpt 3D-printable minis and busts in your browser with Re:Form. Free OBJ export works in any major slicer; Pro adds STL export and a commercial license.