Nomad Sculpt Reviews

First of all, I’ll start positives. I have been bouncing around on 3-D software for a few months now, and I’ve found all of them very difficult to learn or they just simply don’t have the features I’m looking for. Blender Is great but it requires too much time and focused to learn for me, fusion 360 is decent, but it doesn’t have a sculpt feature, ect. Nomad has made the process of learning 3-D design, super easy and I’ve already made a few decent pieces! The interface is simple yet it has a lot of really good tools and functions.

Now for the improvements that could be made. There are definitely some bugs in NomadSculpt, including ones that occasionally affect the sculpting tools. They will either indent or add texture when they are supposed to do the opposite, etc. these bugs often require me to save the design and then restart the whole app. Also, occasionally, when I add an object, it just glitches out and I don’t have access to the. “Gizmo” feature, which basically allows me to edit and alter the shape entirely. I am also forced to restart for this glitch.

Other than being buggy occasionally, I’m really love this software, and if you are a beginner or just looking for something more simple to use, I definitely recommend this.

Really well done. I find it much more approachable than ZBrush when I tried it way back when. NomadSculpt is quite powerful with what it can do, and isn’t a massive overload of complexity. Only one thing that bothers me is when dealing with primitives, before ‘validate’ (strange word to use but ok), my tendency is to try to scroll the toolbar on the right vertically as I would scroll the usual modeling toolbar. Unfortunately this drags & rearranges the tools without any long press/jiggle or anything. I’d prefer long press to rearrange as is pretty standard UI design practice (and as is also the case for entries the Scene panel in Nomad).

Update: auto-save should just happen silently without a popup by default. Save a recoverable file that can be reloaded on launch if a crash was detected, like how MS Excel might do it, for example. If a crash was detected, prompt the user, explain that NomadSculpt didn’t close properly; show a preview of the last auto-save and ask if they want to reload it. Unfortunately one of my kids was getting into Nomad, but found auto-save annoying & disabled it (not knowing you could just silence the popup), and lost her work due to a crash… so now she “hates” it. Ugh.

I really love NomadSculpt. It’s very beginner and user friendly but may crash when using certain tools depending on your device so be careful. Overall, it’s a really good app and I’ve enjoyed it so far. The only issue I have is AUTOSAVE!

The autosave isn’t the autosave that we’re used to. Instead of actually automatically saving your progress every few minutes, you have to manually turn on autosave prompts which it is just giving a prompt to save your work every few minutes of your choosing, which will disrupt what you’re doing. So if you’re used to typical autosave, then hopefully you remember to save your work before closing out. And hope NomadSculpt doesn’t crash and delete everything you’ve worked on🫠

Seriously. NomadSculpt is very user-friendly, it’s pretty much like a procreate version of blender that fits on an ipad if you will. Feels almost criminal for how affordable NomadSculpt is compared to other software I’ve seen that rival NomadSculpt’s quality lol. I clay sculpt with polymer clay sometimes, and I wanted to give digital a whirl since I already illustrate digitally. I’ve researched quite a few programs while browsing on my laptop... Some were buggy, others were just way too complex for what I had wanted to use it for, and some were just straight up too expensive. Finally found this after I thought I’d give an ios app a try. So glad I found this. Hats off to the devs that made this godsend. <3

seriously, i’ve never really done 3d modeling before but after the newest procreate update i figured i should give it a try, and oh my god this is so user friendly compared to many other sculpting programs! it took me maybe 5 minutes to get the hang of the tools, without even having to look up a tutorial or anything, and i’ve already made something i think looks pretty good for my first digital sculpture. some of the settings and stuff can be confusing, but that’s likely just cause i’m new at this. my only real complaint is that NomadSculpt doesn’t do uv mapping, so things can’t be directly exported to apps that need that. (like procreate) honestly if the developer adds uv mapping NomadSculpt will be perfect.

I’ve been using Nomad Sculpt for a few weeks now and it’s amazing! NomadSculpt runs smoothly and I’ve rarely had an issue. It’s very easy to use and learn. I would like to see an option added on the iPad that would set the Apple Pencil as the only way to manipulate an object, at times I try to rotate an object using my finger and end up alternating my design because I forget that my finger can also make changes. One issue that I rarely see is that actions may stop working and NomadSculpt needs to be closed and reopened. For example; while painting the paint will stop being applied to the model, this is the same for any action. Saving my work and restarting NomadSculpt resolves it every time. I have an M2 iPad Pro 12.9”.

NomadSculpt is nice. I’ve been making a HiveWing model on it and I’d say it’s going decently? NomadSculpt itself is great, my skills are just kind of meh. Anyway, here’s what I have to say to people considering Nomad, or basically any other 3D modeling app.

Don’t let the pictures pull you in.

The models shown in the pictures are obviously done by professionals. Your skills will not magically become equivalent to a 3D-modeling version of Leonardo DaVinci. While NomadSculpt is good, it doesn’t have some kind of ability to turn you into a master. If you just want a good 3D modeling app and don’t expect to become a genius just because of the pictures shown, then go ahead. But if you’re looking for a way to become famous using 3D modeling, go get lessons.

This is coming from someone who has never written a review before: NomadSculpt is amazing! I usually sculpt in zBrush on my computer, but I really wanted something that could work on the iPad. I bought NomadSculpt (a few years back) and was pleasantly surprised with how much it could do. Well, I just updated it today and was amazed at how many more features the developers added. It is really fantastic. I love that the price is a cheap, one-time purchase and that the only in-app purchase is for the quad remesher extension (which I am seriously considering buying). So I’m writing this review as a thank-you to the dev team and to let anyone that wants a really solid option for sculpting on the go know: Nomad is great, I highly recommend it!

I have learned so much and came from the bottom of knowing nothing, it unlocked a whole community of interest I had no idea of. I am building a portfolio for my local digital media institute and I’ve already piqued the interest of the admissions folks and how little time it took for me to get a hang of this sculpting stuff, and all on NomadSculpt. Just as features I hope to see in the future, I think it would be neat to be able to rig models in app instead of having to export and go into Adobe mixamo, and then go to blender, just to get a certain pose. Another would be the addition of photoshop brush support possibly? I honestly am not a developer and don’t know if any of what I’m saying is possible in the specs of an iPad but I’m just wishful thinking. Have a great day!

I got this expecting it to only be a travel companion when I’m away from my computer. BUT OH it’s way more than that! It’s very similar to Zbrush in a lot of ways, but it also contains many features I never knew I even wanted until now. It has layer based sculpting, kind of like Photoshop layers, but for sculpting. And you can adjust the opacity of each layer even, or use layers for vertex painting. This is only one example out of the many in NomadSculpt that’s blown me away. NomadSculpt NEEDS MORE USERS! I can also easily export sculpts with color data to Blender for finalizing assets. I can’t think of a single reason to sculpt in Blender instead now. It’s an amazingly capable professional piece of software that you can take wherever you go.

Anytime I speak to other artists or hobbyists about Nomad Sculpt I end up sounding like a salesperson.

If you have previous experience with sculpting software Nomad Sculpt is incredibly easy to pick up and experiment with. If you do not have said experience however, there are plenty of easy-to-follow tutorials out there to get you started.

Of course Nomad Sculpt is not as robust as your expensive full-blown sculpting programs but for the price you pay you're getting an incredible value and I've personally made and seen pieces that rival anything made on your typical PC/laptop software.

The versatility and power of what Nomad Sculpt can do are the highlights for me (on a recent iPad Pro.) Currently I'd say the material painting would be the least intuitive part of this lovely program. Recent updates to other features are encouraging that hopefully soon smarter methods of material painting will come online.

The absolute best reason to love Nomad Sculpt is that it allows me to casually create art on my couch while passively watching stuff. That kind of convenience simply cannot be beat and has exponentially increased my personal art production and creativity.

The mad lad behind Nomad fulfilled one of my long time dreams of being able to work just as well as I do on my computer but on the go.

I can use a stylus with my IPHONE and it will recognize pressure FROM 3D TOUCH?! What a BLESSING! Sir, you have no idea just how amazing you are.

I really appreciate the wonderful reply you gave my review the last time and even more that you actually implemented that 3D Touch pressure sensitivity! I think Nomad (for non ipad users) just became like, easily twice as good. If not even more.

I’m loving it!!

Ps: did I mention I’ve had meshes of 6-7 million polys on Nomad on my iPhone XS Max? It wouldn’t let me save without crashing at that point but maybe at around 5 I still will be able to. Still, forger won’t let me go past 1.5 millions on a phone, which is ridiculous and really simply not enough to get the job done. It’s also worth mentioning this happened to me on Nomad’s previous update. So perhaps it has been fixed on this one.

Nomad is just simply a beast. It is such a beast that I’ve decided I am going to buy an iPad Pro just cause music production and sculpting on iOS have become around 100 times more enjoyable than their PC-based counter parts.

Thank you sir, you are a legend 🙏🏻

I’m a 2D illustrator dipping my toes into the world of 3D. Drawing with a pencil/stylus feels most natural to me but I’ve always longed to recreate my characters in a 3 dimensional space. For weeks I watched tutorials on other programs, learning about topology, planes and vertices, jotting down a million hotkeys, and while that research was rewarding, it still felt like there were too many cumbersome steps just to do one action.

Nomad took a little getting used to, and after playing around with it for a few days and watching a handful of tutorials, I was able to sculpt a bust of one of my characters! The tools honestly feel so good that they bridge the gap between a flat illustration and a dimensional model. I can literally chisel away at flowing shapes as if I’m drawing.

This has been a godsend for my desire to use custom 3D models as reference for my illustrations!

Nomad is hands down the easiest and most intuitive 3D sculpting app... hard stop. The ability to use the apple pencil to directly interact with your mesh surface on the screen of your IPad already makes the UI far better than anything with a mouse or drawing tablet. Combine that with its ability to handle a large number of vertices in a model (depending upon how much memory you have) and its already far ahead of most tools. But the one-man-show that is the developer has consistently continued to improve the product every couple of months, releasing significant updates that expand the capabilities of this tool with regularity. Make no mistake this is not a tool for all things 3D, but as a digital sculpting tool for sculpting meshes and creating your base 3D models it stands above all the rest as the premier tool in the category. (In my opinion)

NomadSculpt is great! It has almost all the core features I love using in ZBrush with really nice responsiveness (I’m on the Gen 1 iPad Pro, even). It has a clean UI/UX that gets out of your way but is there when you look for it (no small feat!)

The pro features like the ability to remesh/dynamesh and the masking (including tapping off the mask to invert) are really great if you are familiar with ZBrush. Having animatable layers was kind of mind-blowing as I didn’t expect that feature to be in an iOS app.

I have tried some of the other sculpting programs, but they always had some strange quirks that made them feel slightly less than professional. In contrast, I can easily see myself using this to sculpt a base mesh as a starting point, then finishing it up in ZBrush.

The fact that it gives you OBJ and STL export as part of the purchase makes it worth the price.

There are a couple of features that would be nice to have, like:

- Boolean subtraction of layers (for example, to make the mouth areas). Maybe I’ve missed this because I am new to NomadSculpt , as there does seem to be a merge layers.

- Grouping of masks/selections to use them later (poly groups in ZBrush parlance)

-FBX export (not necessary since there is OBJ, but nice! :) )

Overall, bravo to the developer! I am looking forward to seem what other updates come down the line. Thanks for a great app!

I have been using ZBrush professionally for well over a decade. Much like all software from "my time" it has become bloated because new features (not refinement) sells units.
One could say the Z-planes for hard surface modeling make ZBrush necessary.... In Nomad, I just modify primitives then use smooth, flatten, pinch and planar to refine. This is also what I do in ZBrush because it lends itself better to design than technical layout.
There were some slight growing pains getting my workflow down to intuition. It's not complicated, I just tended to click the wrong tab at times due to vague icons. That has passed.
If you're serious about modeling, everything you need is here, capable, refined, stable and smooth. If you just want to click on value sliders to make cool stuff happen (I do it too. Not knocking it) you won't find much shallow functionality.
Truly great software on the best platform for working with a stylus. What's not to love.

Before now I've struggled to find a sculpting app that I enjoy using, but after using this one for a couple of hours I'm glad to say that that's changed.
The UI is simple and intuitive, especially if you're at all familiar with desktop sculpting applications. I never spent more than a minute figuring out how to do anything I wanted to, and usually the tool or option I was looking for was either right in front of me or a tap away.
Even more important than that, the sculpting simply feels good. It's quick and responsive. All the basic brushes you might expect are present, and at least for me they cover 99% of my needs. I have yet to dive into the brush options, but they seem quite in depth.
I obviously have not fully explored the limits of NomadSculpt , but I know that I'm going to spend some time with it over the next couple of weeks and figure out how best to use it. I can easily see myself using NomadSculpt for basic work to export and finish in Zbrush.

NomadSculpt needs more attention, it is such a pro level app that I actually wish I have more performance in my M1 iPad Pro, it utilize the chip so well it maxed out the M1’s thermal design limit, the way you know is by how it drains the battery even when you’re plugged in to a 20W charger, this means that NomadSculpt is pushing the chip as high or higher than 20W just like on the M1 Macs, and this doesn’t mean that NomadSculpt is poorly optimized, this just mean you need a bigger charger, the charging port on the iPad Pro can reach 33W, if you have a 30W charger it should keep the iPad Pro running without draining the battery while charging.
It’s not the apps fault for being such a power hog, and it is certainly not that it is poorly optimized, because to maintain good battery life at this point is to sacrifice performance, and I’ll rather have NomadSculpt not lagging when I sculpt than good battery life, you just can’t have both people.

I held off on writing a review for awhile. Wanted to get the full experience of Nomad Sculpt. I’ve worked with Zbrush before so I came in with some sculpting experience. I have to say, I am in awe of NomadSculpt. The power this program has to exist on an IPad is insane. I don’t get to sit down and work a lot, so I’m a big fan of procreate and the likes. NomadSculpt is exactly what I’ve been dreaming of. Now of course there are it’s bugs and glitches and sometimes it’ll crash. But it’s running on an iPad, and that is a truly impressive feat. I work zbrush on my custom built computer, and after an hour it sounds like its going to take off. I can work hours on NomadSculpt and the only thing stopping me is the iPad battery life. NomadSculpt is gigantic, and needs a fair amount of storage but honestly, not as much as I thought for an app this powerful. If you’re a experienced sculptor or just wanting to start out, spend the money. Seriously, it’s worth it. I am excited to see how Nomad grows in the next few months. Seriously impressive, I cannot rave enough.

Honestly these two features make this zbrush level. I myself have been using forger before NomadSculpt but Nomad’s simple interface, the ability to remesh at the click of a button and the fact Dynamesh can be switched on and off per tool makes this the most powerful 3D design tool for the iPad in my opinion. Base meshes are a breeze because of these features. Sculpts can be made from scratch as long as the Dynamesh and voxel Remesh are used correctly. This tool is of the same caliber as something like uMake yet it’s a one time purchase. Also the developers are abundant with updates and bug fixes. If you are looking for an industry level sculpting tool on the go Nomad is all you need.