My Top 5 Brushes in Zbrush

Zbrush has grown to have almost every brush you could ever need now days. Over the course of the years I how slowly started to narrow down my selections of brushes to sculpt in Zbrush. When I first started learning I would just click every brush there was to click. But if I did have to narrow it down to just a few brushes it would be these. 

1. ClayBuildup

Number one on my list of brushes is the ClayBuildup Brush. This brush to me gives the most natural feel for me on my models. I know a close second to this brush is Claytubes but for some reason this brush always comes first in my book. The overlapping and heavy build up gives me a fast turn around and a look I am happy with. So if your looking for a natural feel when sculpting in zbrush I think this brush will fill those needs. 

2. DamStandard

Now if your looking for a quick way to make a clay cut in your model then DamStandard is your brush. The plus side to this brush is depending if your using it for Zadd or Zsub to model. Both can have very different results in sculpting in the end. If you look down below at fig.1 you will see that I used it to cut creases in the pumpkins on the model. 

3. SnakeHood

Now most folks use the Move brush to push and pull objects in Zbrush. I do use Move brush but this isn't the top 5 though. I actually prefer more the SnakeHook brush over the move brush most of the time when sculpting. I find that it feels a bit more organic when doing a model and starting out with the lump of digital clay. 

4. hPolish

The hPollish brush is just one of those brushes that I always come to for cleaning up certain areas. I don't always use this brush if I'm doing more organic modeling but when it comes to hard surface in ZBrush this brush comes in handy. I always get a good result of what I need from this brush. I know this brush was a tuff choice given TrimDynamic does a more aggressive cut. But for my top 5 the hPolish still stands above the TrimDynamic.

5. Standard

And standing at number 5 on my list is the Standard Brush! Yeah this Brush has it all. A brush that can do a lot considering its name. I've always felt you can't go wrong if your just starting out in zbrush and don't know what brush to turn to when sculpting.

Runner up brushes

Now I know someone out there reading this in the future will be screaming "ZModeler!" at me.Yeah it could be argued it is technically a brush, but is it? I guess given that it's a Swiss army knife of brushes in zbrush. For this list it mainly it more towards brushes that come out of the box with no default settings to be adjusted. This is more on the one click brushes you don't have a pop up window with. Another runner up on brushes would be the inflate brush when it's needed. Can't say how many times that brush has fixed some part of a model I've worked on.

Example

Below you can see a small break down of some tools and brushes used to create Pumpkinhead in Zbrush. Hopefully this gives you an idea of how a few of the brushes mentioned can be used and applied to a model. 

Fig.1