Sketching, the very first step for a new sculpt.

Get the measurements right.

Measurements not quite there - the back is too short.

Corrections.

Final sketch. I use the 'Scan Documents' feature on my Apple iPads Camera to get a good photo of the sketch.

Starting a blank scene in Nomad Sculpt with a sphere. At this stage I work with symmetry on. I also work in low resolution. I sowly do a voxel remesh, every now and then, as I progress, but never increase the resolution much with each voxel remesh yet.

Move tool to get some shape started.

Use 'overlay' in the reference photo/background meny, to see through and be able to catch the contours of the sketch.

Drag tool to get some legs started. Be sure to always work in orthographic view, as it shows all parts in the right scaling to one another, unlike perspective view.

Crease tool to carve in some lines to highlight the placement of rough shapes.

Scary looking, absolutely!

Starting to build the muscles with the clay tool.

'Paint' the muscles with the clay tool in the direction of the muscle fibres. Building up the muscle structure under the skin.

More muscle 'painting'. Still super scary looking! It is a thing from nightmares at this stage.

See a mistake I did here - the front belly muscles are not according to the direction of the muscle fibres seen on the anatomy reference. Now, Alice is a round lady, so it is ok in this case, it will be smoothed out. But on a dry muscled horse, if you're going for that, this mistake would be a shame to make!

More definition emerges.

Checking up and adjusting to the sketch.

Starting the head, from a new sphere. Still everything is in symmetry.

Yikes!

Drag and move tools helps.

Rough definition lines with crease tool.

Drag tool to get more shape.

I like to name each part well, or things in the end can get overwhelming. But for now she is only made of two parts.

Some personality slowly starts to emerge.

Here you can see the overlay function in the menu.

A new sphere for the eyes. I give them another colour. You can adjust that in the shading menu.

Mirror over the symmetry axis and there are two! Now, I have yet to fully understand the mirror functions of Nomad, but I have made it work so far.

Eyelid details, and now we see much more of what horse she is!

Starting on the hooves. They are a cylinder that gets a trim with the trim tool.

Trimmed!

A base hoof.

I duplicate the basehoof and pose them according to the sketch.

Now time to turn off symmetry and pose her. I mask the areas I want unaffected and use the gizmo tool to pose the legs as well as I can.

Now after that session, some things may get skewed, and I need to smooth and in severe cases do a voxel remesh.

A lot of adjusting, clay, crease, smooth and rework has to be done at this stage, so the muscles (and the invisible bones underneath) look according to what they're doing in the new pose.

Some small details can be added by now.

Now for the legs and feathers.

It can sometimes help to put on another shading to highlight the shape differently.

And now for the ears. They too start as a sphere, and like the eyes, work across the symmetry line.

Voila! Mirror magic!

And now for some more facial details.

Now turning the symmetry of the head and ears parts to local symmetry, so that I can turn the head without loosing symmetry on the head and ears. I like a little head turn. The assymetry adds to a more natural look, I think. The neck has to be adjusted accordingly.

Moving on with the feathers.

And now it is time to do the final merge (voxel remesh) of all the parts to make a base body.

You can see now the eye part is merged with the rest.

Cleaning after the merge.

After a voxel remesh of several parts some veird things may occur where the surfaces meet. A little clean up is needed.

Now all symmetry is gone, and various last details can be added.

Adding just a bit of assymetry here and there, for a more natural look.

Chestnuts being added. Clay, crease and flatten tool.

And the artist signature! I use the masking tool for that and clay tool.

Now I have a base body - I can now give Alice variations of manes and tails. The first variant, is inspired by the haircut I often see on the Jutland horses.

The approach is the same as with the head, eyes and ears - I add a sphere and work from there.

Sometimes I like to add mane and/or forelock directly on the model. I find it more natural for me, becsue I can 'paint' the shape with masking and clay tool. I find sculpting hair much more difficult digitally, than in real clay. There certainly are pros and cons for traditional versus digital clay.

And there she is - Alice is ready to be exported as a STL file and testprinted.