How to Begin Sculpting in Blender

This is a tutorial for absolute beginners! This will teach you how to move around in blender, and start sculpting! Blender is free also, and there are no ads or paid versions. It just works!

This is meant not to give you a final product necessarily, but just to get you comfortable with the concept of sculpting in blender, and a foothold to get practicing.

(This is a modified workshop of one that I did in person, so some of the pictures may have strange verbiage on them!)

Get a mouse! It is highly recommended to use either a mouse or a tablet pen instead of a touch screen or a track pad.

When opening blender, it can be overwhelming. Don't worry about anything yet, just try moving around the viewport. The viewport is the window with the grid and the cube. Here are some shortcuts to help you out!

middle mouse click - hold to orbit

Shift + middle mouse click - Hold to pan

Scroll up and down to zoom

If this is confusing, you can also use the buttons called gizmos in the top corner to

If you ever get lost, you can jump your view to an object by selecting it in the list (called the outliner) on the right side of the screen, and select view, frame selected. (The included picture demonstrates it too!)

Now that you know how to move your view, lets learn how to move objects.

Moving and changing the scale of objects is really useful in 3D. We can move anything by clicking on it. Depending on how you want to transform it, you hit one of the following buttons based on your needs

X - Delete the object

G - move the object (G for grab)

S - Scale the object

R - Rotate the object

if you want to move, scale or rotate along a specific axis, hit r, s, or g, then type the axis that you want to restrict the movement to.

For example, if I want to spin the cube. I would click it. hit r (for rotate) then z (for the z axis) then move my mouse around. Click when you get the desired rotation!

Once you are comfortable transforming your object, we can now make shapes! Delete the cube by selecting it and hitting x. (RIP)

To add a shape, click the add menu in the top left corner and go down to metaball. These are great for making basic forms to sculpt off of!

Now, you should have a sphere in the middle of your screen. You can scale and move it into any position you want.

Once you have your metaball in the right spot, you can click on it, and hit shift D. This will duplicate it. Now move it around, and you will notice that they glue together! You can use this to block out a basic shape for your sculpture.

Keep adding meatballs until you get to a good rough shape you would like to start with. scale and move them however you like!

(note, to select a specific metaball, you need to click on the outer ring not the ball itself.)

Once you are finished, right-click the main body of the shape, and select convert to mesh. This will make the metaballs no longer interactable, so be sure they are all in the right place!

Okay! the momet you have been waiting for! Sculpting

In the top right, you will notice little tabs. you are most likely on the one that says Layout. Click over to the sculpting tab. (be sure that your shape is selected!)

You now need to check the worlds tiniest check box. It is on the right side of the viewport, and it is called Dyntopo. Click on that, and click okay. You can also turn on symmetry, right next to it, meaning that any changes that you make to one side will happen to the other.

With everything set, we are ready to go! Click on the brushes on the left side of the screen. They will give you a little visual of what they do. Test them out, and see which you like! I would recommend the snake hook brush! it's yellow and looks like a worm.

The most important shortcut now is F. This will change the size of your brush. you can also change all the selected brush options on the right side of the screen.

Zoom in for more detail, and zoom out for less.

These are the basics of sculpting in blender! Hopefully

Now is all about experimentation and practice. Try out each brush, look up tutorials on how to sculpt specific things, and stay inspired. Sculpts are great for creating organic forms, and can be used in anything from 3D printing toys to making characters for games and movies!