"I’ve been asked over and over again: ‘Why bother sculpting a figurine in clay, making a mold and finally casting a copy of the clay original in resin when you could do it all digitally?’"
~ Lisa Schindler
We asked our two sculptors, Lisa Schindler (traditional sculpting) and Kent Trammell (Blender) how their two worlds compare. So what are they? Traditional sculpting, considered one of the plastic arts, is the process of shaping a material to create a three-dimensional object. In digital sculpting (or sculpt modeling) we use tools to manipulate digital objects as if they were made of clay or another real-life material.
First things First: What are the Starter Costs?
Traditional: If you’re looking to get your hands dirty, a few basic tools and one type of clay will cost you $50 to $100. Another $50 will get you a silicone or casting resin in case you want a permanent copy of your sculpture. There are also many tools that you can make yourself for a fraction of the cost of store-bought versions as Lisa often does. “I’ve been known to use a dental rubber-tip gum massager when I needed a pointed tip with softer impact!,” laughs Lisa.
Video: Learn how to create your own (cheap) sculpting tools
What about taking it further and making sculpting more than a hobby? “A mini-studio with all the tools, equipment, materials and storage space will likely set you back over $1,000,” says Lisa. But that’s not the end of it. “I know I will need to invest in a pressure chamber at some point, which, with a compressor, will probably cost me another $1,000.”Digital: To become a digital sculptor, you will initially need just a computer and the right software. A three-button mouse is enough to get you going, but if you want to continue and grow as a sculptor, you should seriously consider getting a pen and tablet.“I’ve personally never met a professional digital sculptor who doesn’t use a tablet,” says Kent Trammell. “Tablets offer a more intuitive, artistic interaction and pressure sensitivity.” There’s a wide range of tablets available from $29 to $2,299. Kent uses a mid-range budget model: The Intuos Pen & Touch.
"Do I really need a tablet?" (It depends on the kind of artist you are)
What Tools Do You Use?
Traditional: Tools are instruments you use to shape your material.
There are two main types of traditional sculpting tools: wooden and metal. “Working with wooden tools feels more gentle, while metal tools tend to produce sharper edges,” explains Lisa. Each type comes in a variety of forms, from pointy and edgy to flat, round or looped.
Traditional tools and digital brushes
Digital: In digital sculpting, we also use tools, called “brushes”. Just like in traditional sculpting, these brushes shape and form your material. Blender offers various brushes like “blob”, “clay”, “crease” (Kent’s favorite), “inflate” or the essential “mask brush”. Each of them can be controlled for radius and strength, mimicking real-life tools.
The Stuff You Shape: Mediums
Lisa stretching polymer clay
Traditional: Mediums are the materials you shape to get your final sculpture. From air-dry to oil-based clay and everything in between, each material has its pros and cons. Choosing the right one can be tricky: “I spent well over $200 just to find my favorite type of clay,” says Lisa. “So the search can be a lengthy trial-and-error approach.”
The 'Snake Brush' can be used to drag out
a tentacle while new geometry is being generated.[/caption] Digital: There are different mediums, or types of ‘digital clay’ to sculpt with, the main ones being multi-resolution and dynamic topology. “With multi-resolution, we sub-divide an existing mesh to create more geometry for us to work with and add detail,” explains Kent. Dynamic topology (or ‘dyntopo’) generates new geometry as needed. “If I want to pull a horn out of my character’s head, dynamic topology will magically extrude that new geometry as the sculpting stroke is performed,” says Kent. “It offers incredible freedom to discover shapes and forms without considering the input mesh’s limitations - sort of like having unlimited digital clay in your hands.”
Full course: Fundamentals of Digital Sculpting
Posing Your Model: Armature vs. Rig
Traditional: An armature is a structure supporting the weight of your clay and helping it stand upright, functioning as a skeleton. Unlike digital sculpting, the pose of your model is permanent: “I have to decide on a pose before starting to put any clay onto my armature.” says Lisa. “Muscles change their shape with movement, which means once I have a pose I have to stick with it.” Digital: A “rig” is a hierarchical system of bones and constraints that enable a 3D model to be animated. For obvious reasons, they are not needed to make your model stand upright like in traditional sculpting. Isntead, working digitally means you can sculpt your anatomy in a neutral pose, then rig it for easy, non-destructive posing, or make it do cartwheels all over your screen.
Molding and Casting
Traditional: This is yet another step which only exist in traditional sculpting. If you want to make an exact replica of your beautifully sculpted clay garden gnome in a permanent material, you better get moldin’! In a series of steps which involve engineering the right mold and casting your model in it, an intimate knowledge of the different materials is required. “You have a variety of options to choose from, both for molding materials and for casting. To be a sculptor, you have to become a bit of a materials scientist first,” explains Lisa. Digital: In digital sculpting, none of the above is needed. Replicating your sculpt is as easy as copy & pasting your little clone army in seconds.
Mirroring
Tigrelito, created with dyntopo, by Kent Trammell[/caption] Traditional: Trying to get the left and right side of your character’s face exactly the same? “My eyes have to be my guide to make sure I’m not sculpting a lopsided head. Because that’s not a good look,” says Lisa. Digital: In Blender, this is done simply by enabling symmetry for a selected axis. “I can mirror my sculpts from one side to the other, even top-to-bottom and front-to-back,” says Kent. “Perfect symmetry is a given with digital sculpting. In fact, the bigger problem is reminding myself to add asymmetrical details since perfect symmetry is unnatural and usually hinders a sculpture’s appeal.”
Limitations: The Laws of Physics
Traditional: In the real world, we are bound by a pesky set of rules known as the laws of physics. “If you want to pose your sculpt in a dynamic way, you need to make sure it can support itself,” explains Lisa. “If its center of gravity is off, you will have to integrate some sort of support structure in the base to counterbalance this.”Digital: In 3D, your imagination is the limit. You can create models that defy gravity, are paper-thin or simply impossible in the real world. Lisa knows that one of the strengths of digital sculpting lies in the speed and creative freedom it gives to artists: “If there is a sculptural piece that’s too outrageous to be sculpted in clay, I simply do it digitally instead. That is especially the case if I want the idea out quickly and without dealing with all the problem solving of traditional sculpting.”
Full Course: Sculpting a Character for a Game
The Tangible vs. The Digital
Finally, after all the work, you have your end product: a real-life sculpture, or a 3D image on a screen. How do they compare?“That feeling of holding your sculpture is significant,” says Kent. “I’ll admit that over time digital sculptures seem to move me less; in the back of my mind I know it’s just a visual representation of certain 0’s and 1’s. But when I see a physical sculpture - often being Lisa’s - I’m moved a little more, I gaze a little longer.”
Get Started with Traditional Sculpting Fast: Lisa's "Sculpting Basics"
Lisa confirms this: “Every artist I know who works both digitally and traditionally confirms that there is something almost cathartic about working in real-life mediums,” she says. “As a digital painter, picking up a charcoal pencil, acrylic or oil paint and working with a real brush feels so raw and satisfying.” However, this experience doesn’t need to be absent from digital sculpting entirely: “Let’s not forget that 3D printing offers tangibility for digital sculptures,” says Kent, “though this comes at a cost - sometimes a steep one.” 
The Ticketeer, digital and 3D printed model, by Kent Trammell[/caption]
The Final Verdict
“When comparing the two approaches, neither is better or worse any more than the trumpet is better or worse than the guitar. It comes down to the preference of the artist,” says Kent. The good news is, you may not have to choose, as Lisa knows: “Nobody says you should restrict yourself to digital or traditional only” says Lisa. “As an artist, you should be open to every way to express yourself. You can embrace both worlds.”
Learn more about Traditional Sculpting or check out our full offer of Digital Sculpting courses.
This was an interesting read. I've never thought about the two comparisons in such detail before. Thank you.
This is a great blog.
A few things not mentioned that make digital sculpting a little easier;
1. Control+Z - potentially easier to undo things
2. 'Move' brush in sculpt mode - less critical to nail down the proportions at the beginning
3. Additive + Subtractive - some real world mediums are only subtractive (e.g., marble, wood, pumpkins!) making it much more difficult
Thank you so much for the excellent article. Loving both worlds, I observe that there is something special traditional art, especially in sculpture: Its haptical quality. This something which can not be derived from digital art. Its outcome varies with the surrounding light, its surface is influenced by weather, temperature or even contaminants if its set up outside. The viewer can touch it, feel it, and find his preferred perspective. It exists in the real world, its vulnerable to a certain degree and tells about its creator even when the computers are switched off. And in my eyes its the art that lasts over times.
Thank you for the kind words, that means a lot. I am fortunate to have the extremely talented and knowledgeable CG Cookie crew around who let me pick their brains. So happy to hear that you are enjoying it, I will make sure to keep it up!
I have got the chance to read nearly all of your blogs. Thank you so much for your great works that distil such valuable information and share with us. I don't know much effort that I would need to spend on researching these subjects, while I don't have any idea where to start and which questions to ask. Thank you.
An interesting point: with anything but art, the real would beat the digital hands down. Think anything: sports, travel, dating, whatever (maybe except for violence, with which it's the other way around: if you must do it, at least try to keep it strictly virtual). But art is never real: in clay, on paper, or with software, it's only an approximmation of a dream. So if I were to choose, I'd choose what: 1 gives me the closest approximmation; 2 is less dependant on the external factors (like the materials, or my own purely physical skills); and 3 doesn't try my patience so badly that towards the end I start wishing I had swallowed a sleeping pill and never had that stupid dream in the first place.
In my case, it's Blender & GIMP all right, but not sculpting: I admire people who have the patience for it, but I'm too much a product of the instant gratification culture. You know, 130 bpm, 60 fps, and 20 kph above the speed limit (just paid yet another fine, damn the speed cameras! :-) ).
Interesting article! Thank you.
I love this article! I totally agree with Lisa when she said,
“Nobody says you should restrict yourself to digital or traditional only” says Lisa. “As an artist, you should be open to every way to express yourself. You can embrace both worlds.”
I know this because I tried both traditional and digital sculpting. I also like 2D traditional and I love using blender for 3D animation and modeling. I am currently working on an animated short film with my brother and I already made three acting shorts... Am 16
A very good article. It was interesting to see the comparison between traditional and digital sculpting. For some reason I didn't think about a traditional sculpt as having an armature, but when you think about it, it totally makes sense.