Since I was unable to get to the university campus most days I started looking for alternative programs to do my work with. This is when I found Nomand Sculpt, a 3D sculpting program I got on my iPad.
With my small amount of ZBrush and Blender experience in mind (mostly from before my resit this year which you can see here: ) I found the app quite similar in how those applications functioned, though simpler and with fewer features.
The same as ZBrush and most modelling apps, it starts you off with a simple primitive sphere. The first time I loaded up the app I just started by experimenting with the tools before getting into a sculpt. They all worked the exact same as my experiences with ZBrush and Blender
After experimenting with some of the features available in the app I moved on to trying to make a face. My idea was to make a bust of the main characters from my game concept Slumber, the Guardian Spirit with large glowing glasses. This way I could see how the characters could look in my style in 3D before deciding if I wanted to keep the game entirely 2D.
So starting off from the primitive circle I used the 'drag' and 'move' tools to give the face a longer more oval shape, adding in more defined cheekbones and pushing in parts to make a more defined brow. I then used the 'brush' tools to build up some areas such as the cheekbones and start on the shape of the nose, sometimes using the 'smooth' tool to making everything seamless. I also started using the 'crease' tool on the nose to give some sharper edges and lines.
When I moved onto the mouth I also tried out the 'mask' tools for the first time. I was struggling to get the shape right for both the lips, especially since changing one tended to affect the other since they were so close and at the time a bit too small on the face. So I used to mask so the bottom lip I was happier with wouldn't be affected while I worked on the top one.
By now I was starting to gain a bit of confidence in my sculpting ability and had moved onto the eyes. This is where I encountered my first issue. I had started to use layers for parts of the face but couldn't figure out how to get a new shape such as a sphere onto a new layer, which I wanted to do for both the eyes. After some Google searches, I still couldn't find a solution. As I thought I was logically pressing all the right buttons and my searches came up with nothing I instead used the 'inflate' tool to make rounded bulges on the face then used the other previously mentioned tools to shape and size it until I had a result I was happy with.
Once I had finished the eyes I added on a neck to start off the bust and eyebrows along did a few tweaks to everything I had done so far.
At this point, since I had spent so long on my NFT style artefact, I was running out of time for this sculpt. So I decided to just get the face as best as I could then render since I knew I wouldn't be able to finish the whole bust on time.
If I had more time, I would've finished this bust and also maybe tried to find a better solution to my issues by inserting objects for the eyes. I had the option of joining a Discord server for the app that I found later, so in any future work, I would consider joining that to hopefully ask about any technical issues I may be having.
Despite the sculpt not being to the standards I wanted it, I was very happy with the face I had created. Though due to how time-consuming it was, and how realistic my style usually is, I decided I would definitely be sticking to a 2D game after this artefact.
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