If you want to create highly detailed or organic 3D models, 3D sculpting is the best technique. Unlike other 3D design methods that rely on manipulating vertices, edges, and faces to shape the objects, sculpting allows for a more intuitive, brush-based approach, making it easier to achieve smooth, natural shapes and intricate details. This is why it’s the most recommended method of creating characters, figurines, jewelry designs, and organic objects like trees and rocks. You can use sculpting brushes and tools to manipulate the design through pushing, pulling, pinching, moving, and smoothing until you achieve the intended design.

The sculpting brushes include tools for adjusting their size and intensity, giving you complete control over the sculpting process. Some 3D sculpting software also comes with painting tools that are useful for adding color and texture to the designs after designing. Many 3D sculpting tools are available, and the main ones are listed below.

6 ZBrush

Industry-standard 3D sculpting software

ZBrush is by far the industry-standard 3D sculpting software, but it comes at a price tag of $49 a month, which may be a barrier for hobbyists or those starting in digital sculpting. It is advanced, and it can take you a while before mastering all its tools and features, but once you learn it, you will be able to create advanced sculptures in the program, as it provides a unique approach to 3D sculpting. It comes with more than 200 brushes that allow you to work with meshes just the way you work with clay.

ZBrush has a dynamic sculpting brush system that offers natural and customizable brushes that are great for flexibility and precision. You can effortlessly work on fine details and bold textures. There is also the Dynamesh tool, which works like digital clay, enabling you to quickly and creatively work with smooth details and surfaces without worrying about the structure of the design. If you are working on designs that will be 3D printed, you can use ZBrush to create designs optimized for 3D printing.

In addition, the software has a Live Boolean tool that lets you adjust and preview changes in the meshes instantly. This is essential for creating complex shapes and refining designs in real time.

ZBrush for iPad was launched recently, bringing the software to a more portable platform. While it does not have the full functionality of the desktop version, it still provides a robust set of tools to help you start your project, work on a smaller aspect, and then move to the desktop version to refine it further. If you are a professional and not on a budget, I highly recommend this program; however, if you would like a free option, check out the following program on our list: Blender.

5 Blender

Free 3D sculpting software

While it’s widely known as a 3D modeling program with animation and rendering capabilities, Blender also comes with advanced sculpting brushes that are useful for manipulating high-polygon meshes and creating intricate details and organic models with precision. Some of Blender’s advantages are that it’s completely free and there are many learning materials available that you can use to learn how the software works.

Another significant benefit is Blender’s large and active community, which you can turn to for help if you encounter a problem or need clarification. You can find support and discussions on Reddit, Facebook, and other online forums.

To get the most out of Blender, you need to optimize it for 3D sculpting by adjusting various settings and workflow to run smoothly and handle high-polygon counts. For example, you can activate backface culling to hide faces not visible to the camera and deactivate antialiasing to reduce GPU load. Using the multi-modifiers also helps you handle high-detail sculpting efficiently.

4 Nomad Sculpt

3D sculpt on mobile

If you would like a sculpting program that runs on mobile devices. It is easy to understand, and despite being a mobile application, it provides many advanced features like dynamic topology, voxel remeshing, and customizable brushes like clay, crease, smooth, mask, crease, and trim. These help create detailed and complex 3D models with ease. It can handle high-polygon models and provides a layers option that enables non-destructive sculpting, giving you control over your designs.

Nomad Sculpt comes with topology helpers like multiresolution sculpting, which allows for detailed adjustments at different subdivision levels, and subtractive Boolean operations for cutting and refining shapes with precision. Creating realistic, smooth, glossy surfaces is easier with vertex painting, as you can apply colors and textures directly to the model's surface.

These help you maintain clean geometry while sculpting. After designing, Nomad Sculpt allows you to export in OBJ, STL, or glTF format. You can get it on Google Play, App Store, or AppGallery.

3 SelfCAD

Easy-to-use sculpting software

SelfCAD is a 3D modeling software with powerful 3D sculpting features. It runs online, and there is a downloadable version for Windows and Mac. Both the downloadable and online versions are synchronized. Whatever you do offline is reflected in the online version when you access the internet, which is helpful when switching between different devices. SelfCAD has a free and paid version. The free one is great, but it’s limited in functionality, and you can pay $14.99/m to access all the tools.

SelfCAD comes with various sculpting brushes that you can use to push, add, remove, pull, inflate, and smooth meshes until you achieve your desired results. After choosing the sculpting brush, you see various advanced tools, like symmetry, which, when you activate, will apply changes on both sides of the object. There are options to set the brush's size, strength, and effects. SelfCAD also comes with a Dynamic topology feature, which, when you activate it, adds details along with the effect of the brush, and a Remesh topology option to make the object easier to sculpt.

2 Maya

Professional 3D sculpting software

While it is primarily known for its advanced animation and rendering capabilities, Maya has sculpting tools that are useful for creating even advanced characters. It has several subscription options: $245/m per user, $1945/yr, and a three-year subscription of $5830. You can access the sculpting brushes from the Mesh Tools -> Sculpting Tools Menu.

The sculpting tools of Maya include Sculpt for building up initial forms and moving vertices in the direction specified, Smooth for smoothing the mesh by leveling the vertex positions to be the same, Grab for selecting and moving the vertices based on the distance and the direction you drag, and Pinch for pulling vertices towards the center of the cursor. Many other brushes, like Flatten, Foamy, Spray, Repeat, Relax, Fill, and many others, are available. Maya also has a Shape Editor tool that, when you click it, opens the option to edit the shape targets using sculpting tools.

1 SculptGL

3D sculpt on the web

SculptGL is a free 3D sculpting program that runs online, and you don’t need to download or install any other software. When you access the website, a default sphere will appear as the starting point for sculpting. The interface is simple and intuitive, allowing beginners to get started quickly. It has various sculpting brushes, like the other tools described here, and they include inflate, twist, smooth, flatten, pinch, crease, drag, paint, and move. You can adjust the brush size in the Radius (-X) settings and the intensity from the Intensity (-C) section.

SculptGL also features a PBR Vertex Painting tool that is useful for adding colors, roughness, and metalness to your design. There are multiresolution sculpting tools for navigating from low to high poly level subdivision while retaining the sculpting changes. The voxel remeshing option is available to convert the design to a uniform voxel grid and then reconstruct it into a clean, evenly distributed mesh. This helps remove stretched polygons and ensures there is consistent topology. A consistent topology is ideal for merging objects, refining shapes, or reworking a model without worrying about its original design.

There is also a Dynamic topology feature that dynamically adds and reduces polygons based on the level of detail needed in different areas of the sculpture. Instead of remeshing the entire model, this feature modifies the topology only when necessary, which is essential when working on intricate details without unnecessarily increasing the polygon count.

3D sculpt just the way you sculpt real objects from clay

Each of the above sculpting tools has its strengths and weaknesses, and you can try each of them and see which is best for your needs. As we have seen, if you are a professional needing to create complex sculptures, you should go for ZBrush, as it’s the industry standard and comes with advanced tools. Maya is a perfect alternative, though it comes at a higher cost.

If you are on a budget and want something similar to ZBrush and Maya, Blender should be your go-to program. Complete beginners looking for an easy-to-use program should go for SelfCAD and ScultGL. On the other hand, Nomad Sculpt should help you produce powerful sculptures if you are limited to a mobile device. As you choose the tool, you must also have a powerful computer, as the 3D sculpting process is resource-intensive.