For those who don’t know the site: BlenderKit is a built-in asset library for Blender. It loads materials, models, HDRIs, scenes and brushes straight into the viewport, no dragging, no file hunting, no tears.

Brush bonanza in Blender

The asset library BlenderKit has quietly added more than 1,000 free sculpting brushes to its growing database. The brushes target a wide range of 3D workflows, from organic modelling and creature detailing to hard-surface wear and tear. These free brushes are part of a total collection exceeding 5,000 sculpting presets now listed in BlenderKit. Free brushes include assets for wrinkles, pores, fabric seams, stone cracks, and mechanical surfaces. Most are licensed under CC0 or royalty-free commercial licences, allowing unrestricted use in paid work.

Everything inside Blender

BlenderKit runs directly inside Blender, so artists can browse and import models, materials, HDRIs, scenes and now brushes without leaving the application. The plugin’s tight integration means no external downloads or add-on juggling. The full BlenderKit library now contains more than 114,000 assets, with roughly 54,000 of them available for free. Paid plans unlock the remaining content, offer 2 GB of cloud storage and include optional extra add-ons. The plugin requires Blender 3.0 or later.

Free, legal, and plenty

All assets on BlenderKit’s free tier can be used commercially, provided the creator’s licence allows it. The site distinguishes between CC0 (public domain) and royalty-free assets. For users on budget-tight pipelines or smaller indie teams, this is one of the most extensive legally clean asset pools available directly inside a DCC.

The newly added sculpting brushes fit well with Blender’s growing use in creature and environment design for both games and film work. The convenience of in-viewport access saves a good amount of tme compared to manual brush setup and file import routines.

Try before you rely

As always, new tools should be tested before being used in production environments. Brush performance, texture resolution and stroke response vary depending on the sculpting engine version and system hardware.

https://www.blenderkit.com/

The post Over 1,000 free sculpting brushes land in BlenderKit first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

The Blender Foundation is now developing a native Blender Ipad app for the iPad Pro—complete with Apple Pencil support and a multitouch interface aimed squarely at professional 3D artists. This will not be a “Blender Lite.” The project aims for the full desktop Blender experience, reworked for pen and touch workflows, while preserving the familiar Blender architecture.

The first iteration will cover sculpting and basic object manipulation, with features such as Grease Pencil, storyboarding, and animation scheduled for later releases. The Blender team made it clear: the goal is to maintain parity with the desktop version, just with a different input philosophy.

Interface Built for Touch, Without Dumbing Down

Designers at the Blender Foundation are rethinking the UI for a single-window workflow. There will be floating panels, context overlays, collapsed menus, and icon-driven sidebars—each tailored for pen and finger rather than mouse. Importantly, the UI is being built directly atop Blender’s core, not a mobile-only fork. This ensures compatibility and consistency, so desktop and tablet artists will share the same underlying toolset and development pipeline.

The project targets existing Blender users—no attempt to reinvent the app as an entry-level tool for hobbyists. The focus remains on enabling experienced artists to use familiar workflows with a different interface.

Roadmap and Timeline

No firm release date yet, but the Blender Foundation is planning a live tech demo for SIGGRAPH 2025 in Vancouver (August 10–14). Following that, Blender HQ in Amsterdam will host a design workshop to gather more community input, and additional sessions are on the agenda for Blender Conference 2025.

Once the Blender iPad Pro app is stable, the team plans to expand to other devices, including Microsoft Surface, Huawei MatePad, Wacom MovinkPad, and Android tablets. The goal is to address professional 3D workflows on the full spectrum of advanced tablets—eventually.

Feedback and Development Community Participation

The new “Beyond Mouse and Keyboard” branch on Blender’s developer forums is open for input, with the Foundation especially interested in designers experienced with multitouch and pen-based UIs. Add-ons are not on the priority list for initial builds, so plugin authors may have to wait until the core UI and workflows are stable.

What Tab-Specific Workflows Mean for Desktop Blender

UI improvements being developed for tablets—including a Quick Favorites editor, icon-driven sidebar, helper overlays, and wheel menus—are also planned for the desktop version of Blender 5.0. Touch-first R&D could soon benefit every Blender artist, regardless of platform.

The post Blender on iPad Pro at Last—Without Losing Its Blender-ness first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

Maxon has officially announced that the ZBrush Summit 2025 Virtual Edition will stream online from November 7 to 9. The event marks the 25th anniversary of Pixologic’s ZBrush and promises a slate of live presentations, tutorials, artist features, and a high‑energy sculpt‑off

Join us November 7-9 for a historic ZBrush Summit 2025 as we celebrate 25 years of ZBrush!
Virtual & global — 3 days of live demos, artist spotlights, and insider workflows.
Whether pro or just starting out, you don’t want to miss this!
More info at https://t.co/DqY0XL3Xar pic.twitter.com/bP7XW2mtZd

— Maxon ZBrush (@maxonzbrush) July 9, 2025

What’s on the Sculpting Slate

Maxon positions the summit as “an immersive, interactive experience like never before.” The agenda includes live demos, beta‑feature previews, and spotlight sessions with working artists. A highlight will be the sculpt‑off—a live competition showing real‑time sculpting workflows . This format caters to artists at every skill level, promising educational insights and practical techniques.

Beta Features Unveiled

Attendees will gain early access to unreleased ZBrush beta features. Maxon’s Teaser only specifies “cutting‑edge tools,” without detailing the functions. This isn’t unusual, but professionals should reserve judgment until they can test them on real shots.

The post Maxon Invites Artists to Attend the ZBrush Summit 2025 Virtual Edition first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

Maxon has now nailed the Forger coffin shut, confirming that the iPad sculpting app will enter “limited maintenance mode” and vanish from the App Store on September 10, 2025. The company’s newly published FAQ leaves little room for ambiguity: after the cutoff, no new updates, no fresh bug fixes, and definitely no new subscriptions.

Forger, acquired by Maxon in 2021 after a long solo run since 2011, brought polygon modeling, non-destructive layers, and a surprisingly ambitious toolset to the iPad. But since 2023, it’s seen nothing more than bug fix bandages. Now, even those are running out.

What “Limited Maintenance Mode” Means—No Surprises Here

From September 10, 2025, Forger is gone from the App Store. You can’t buy, download, or subscribe. Current users can keep the app as long as their subscription is active and can re-download, but there will be no new updates or bug fixes. Technical support remains, but only until your subscription runs out or Forger vanishes entirely.

Migration: GoZ

If you want your work to survive, use GoZ to transfer projects to ZBrush (desktop or iPad). Forger’s native file format is not supported anywhere else—not even in Cinema 4D. Plan accordingly. Layers, mesh data, and certain effects may not transfer cleanly, especially for complex projects. The official advice: test your asset pipeline now, not after September.

Forger Out, ZBrush for iPad In

Maxon’s recommended replacement is ZBrush for iPad, which debuted in September 2024. It supports 200+ brushes, DynaMesh, Sculptris Pro, and other ZBrush staples. It’s free to try, but full functionality costs $9.99/month or $89.99/year—substantially more than Forger’s old $1.99/month or $14.99/year. There is no migration discount. The Forger and ZBrush for iPad teams are being merged, so features should converge (in theory, and with enough patience).

Reality Check: Test Before You Migrate

Every workflow, export, and pipeline step should be validated with actual production assets before committing to ZBrush for iPad or any replacement. Maxon’s FAQ and support documentation make no secret of Forger’s quirks—neither should your team.

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Maxon official FAQ: End of Support // Forger End of Service FAQ

The post Maxon Sunsets Forger: iPad Sculptors Get the (Maintenance) Axe first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

Nomad Sculpt, the touch-friendly sculpting app known from the iPad, is now available as a public beta for Windows, macOS and Linux. The desktop edition includes all current features of the iPad version and is free during the beta phase. How long that will last? Unknown. But it’s free now, so no complaints.

The desktop edition is available directly from the official Nomad Sculpt website, where the beta builds can be downloaded for all three major platforms.

Same Tools, New Platforms

If you’ve used Nomad on iPad, you’ll feel right at home. The desktop beta includes all current features of the iPad version, Nomad Sculpt offers a comprehensive suite of features tailored for digital sculpting and painting. Its extensive toolset includes brushes such as Clay, Crease, Trim, Smooth, and Mask, with customizable strokes featuring falloff, alpha, and other options. Rendering capabilities encompass both Matcap and Physically Based Rendering (PBR), while vertex painting tools provide control over roughness and metalness properties.

For topology management, Nomad Sculpt supports multiresolution sculpting, voxel uniform remeshing with subtractive boolean operations, dynamic topology for localized mesh refinement, and robust layers that accommodate topology changes. The interface is intuitively designed for mobile devices, supporting pressure sensitivity with Apple Pencil and Samsung S Pen. Additionally, the application facilitates import and export in OBJ, STL, and glTF formats. (nomadsculpt.com)

Licensing: Undecided

As of now, the desktop version of Nomad is free to use in its beta phase. Whether a permanent free version will exist or if a pricing model will follow is still undecided. The iPad version is currently priced at €18.99 on the App Store, but this doesn’t necessarily indicate future desktop pricing.

Still in Beta: Use With Caution

As a beta release, Nomad Sculpt for desktop should be considered not yet production-ready. Bugs, crashes or missing features may occur. Testing is encouraged, but integrating the tool into production pipelines should wait until stability and long-term support are clarified.

For now, Nomad offers a remarkably full-featured, responsive sculpting tool on desktop – assuming you don’t mind being a beta-tester with a Wacom.

The post Nomad: Sculpting on Desktop first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.