Skin folds - what’s a good technique?

Lounge
1

Hi there! As a bit of sculpting practice, I’m trying to copy this amazing artwork by Adrian smith in 3d: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/1nE6dq
But I’m struggling with the toothy skin fold above the front shoulder. Here’s my version so far:

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I’ve tried masking off the bit that tucks under, then dragging the overlapping bit over, but it just ends up lumpy. Doing the inverse of that ends up really stretching the mesh and making a jagged edge.
Does anyone have a good technique for this kind of thing?
Thanks for any help!

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Crease tool to draw in the fold lines, Brush tool to fluff out the spaces in-between.

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Mask and use dynamic topology + drag.

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I guess you are already there.
If you want to remesh in future, the fold will be lost again.
Just to consider.
The regular brush tool, sometimes inflate, and what you did already will give you the result you want.
Just add a layer and go crazy in testing, as it’s non destructive and you can erase with del layer what you don’t like :vulcan_salute:

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hmmm the problem I have with the crease tool is it only creases in one direction (directly along the face normal, i guess) and I don’t know of any way to change that direction. is there some brush setting i’m not aware of?

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oh that looks pretty good, thanks! I need to do some reading about dynamic topology - when i’ve tried it (briefly) in the past, I struggled to figure out what detail level I should use. It seemed to end up too high-res no matter the detail level I chose!

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thanks, that’s a great idea! I really haven’t looked into layers yet but they sound ideal for this kind of learning :ok_hand: guess I need to do some reading and hit up youtube!

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Layers are a blast.
Lots of functions.
Also extract like with masking.

They are also working with dyntopo.
This gives some crazy effects when you added a bit more in one layer :laughing:

Or some more serious use:

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Wow, that is wild! Also, nice sculpt! I love the skin detail and scales. I have to learn how to do that next :grinning:
So I tried layers for the first time and used the mask/grab/dyntopo technique from @Holger_Schoenischka
Before and after in one image since the forum will only let me upload one:

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Needs work, obviously, but I think it looks pretty good!
Thanks everyone

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Experiment with the different Dynamic Topology settings:

Set to Zoom and your topology density is based upon the view zoom level - zoom in an you’re seeing the same density in relation to the screen but when you zoom out you’ll notice that the area you worked on will be a denser mesh.
Set to Radius and the division density will get higher the smaller the radius - good for painting higher density areas whilst still zoomed out.
Set to Constant, you get the same amount of division at all zoom levels & radius levels.