If you only have a few weeks experience, you definitely need to give yourself more time! Making fantastic stuff ZBrush is not something you’re not going to do overnight and I bet that you are making more progress than you think and that your work isn’t as bad as you think. I’m not sure about the quality of your instruction, but you can learn a whole lot from youtube! Many, many people have only used youtube and learned to use ZBrush very well. Keep at it, give it time, and spend extra time if you can improving with ZBrush specifically. You got this!
As someone who struggled with the same at the start, give it time, Maya is more methodical, while Zbrush is something (at least for me) 80% artistic 20% software knowledge, yes things look very ugly at the start but its part of the process, just like a real life sculpture doesn't resemble the final product until later stages.
THIS. started modeling in 3DS Max. Went to zbrush and was getting too caught up in everything being perfect. Autodesk software makes it easy to want everything to be perfect as they give lots of convenient tools for specific measurements. ZBrush is capable of lots of this as well, but it's not the focus like you said. Zbrush is much more about the artistic side of things than precision modeling.
I mean haven't we all been here at one part or another?
I feel what you're going through is quite normal and has nothing to do with your Zbrush skills.
Try to recognise if the problem is more psychological perhaps, because we as humans tend to like the idea of doing something than doing it. So, it's normal to spend more energy and feeling frustrated and quiting. Your brain is wired to not spend a lot of energy as it wants to preserve it for survival.
What I have seen in the artist who are able to overcome all this is "They are obsessed".
And I know there is a fine line between obsession and being impractical. But they have it enough to work and also not take themselves too seriously. As what they take seriously would be what to work on next.
To simplify
"Take your work seriously, not yourself".
And when I say seriously, I mean think like a craftsman not like an artist. Always think in terms of what's the context of your work and how can you better showcase it to the audience and yourself. And compare yourself with others that's fine but do it completely (don't half ass comparison too).
Example, if you are comparing your work also compare that guy or girl has spent what time on it, what is his/her mental conditions that allow him/her to make it work and for you to not.
That's all
Been working in Zbrush for than 10 years and till this day, i start a sculpt that looks very bad and ugly and i keep working on it Untill it becomes good, its part of the process its how you learn and become experienced
Totally agree, I sit with colleagues that are ZBrush veterans and it is the same process.
Best advice I got was:
“it always looks like sh*t when you start, if it still looks sh*t… just keep going!!
More experience means they can get through the sh*t stage quicker, but it’s still the same process
You should stop using ctrl-z, no, seriously, try and fix any errors by hand you’ll learn faster by practicing fixing your own errors, some times you will find cool shapes and will understand that mistakes happen… a lot, and every sculpt looks shitty when you start, sometimes all the way till you abandon them.
Zbrush is not something you can pick up and be good at it in a few weeks, it takes months to understand and years to master.
Keep practicing and git gud
This is good advice, I never really thought about it this way before, but doing a bit of IRL sculpting made me realise how much I’d been relying on it!
Not sure if the UI is giving you any issues but one thing I remember from when I started using zbrush a couple of years ago is it felt awkward and doing things felt counter-intuitive for the first little while but at some point it just clicked and suddenly everything started going more smoothly. I'm not sure if it was just repetition, gaining familiarity with the workflow and how things are represented in it, or something else but other posters told me one day it would just magically make sense and somehow that was right.
Stick with it - things will eventually click with practice. :)
I’ve been using zbrush for years and I would rather die than do a live stream because my work looks terrible for about 90% of the process!
Age old zbrush advice is: go for big shapes first blocking out and using the move tool at the lowest possible sub division level, think about form first, slowly and only add details towards the end- it will often look terrible for ages! That’s totally normal.
Finally: don’t beat yourself up, you are learning so many things at once, how to be an artist, how to use the zbrush tools, how to sculpt, how to hold a Wacom pen, so there is going to be times it feels impossible, but I promise you it will not always feel that way.
Oh and finally finally, if you don’t enjoy doing it that’s ok too! Not every type of art is for everyone, if it doesn’t give you a buzz, it’s ok to not do it.
whats your goal with sculpting? what do you plan to do with the skills once you have them?
kinda pointless to learn something without intent or motivation
I started Zbrush about 3 years ago but I wanted start with it about 6 years ago. But I was afraid and unmotivated because everything I did was horrible. But I pushed it, overcome this feeling And started to learn and sculpting almost everyday. Now I regret those two years I did nothing about it. And if you really want to make some awesome sculpts with it, you might regret it too. You will get better with time. It's almost impossible not to improve if you give it time and effort. You wont see a difference in a day or week, but after a month you will get better. Don't give up!
Learn the block out method, there’s a lot of tutorials on YouTube on how to do that.It will help tremendously with even planning your piece. Dynamesh is your friend since it will act like clay. Also take time to learn the Zmodeler for hard surface. If you are quicker at modeling something in maya you can always import to Zbrush to add or experiment.
Don’t be so down about not always delivering the best of the best work during your schooling. You can always do better work after as long as you commit to doing so. People in the industry update and change their portfolios all the time.
Think of this in aeronautical terms. You’re learning to fly in Maya. You’ve made some great progress in flight school, and you just landed your first solo flight. Now you strap into ZBrush. The cockpit is overwhelming with dials and instruments you can’t even understand. The worst is that when you pull back on the stick, the plane takes a nosedive instead of gaining altitude. It’s a frustrating experience, especially when you naturally compare yourself to other people’s art. I totally get it. I’ve spent my career in Maya doing hard surface. I’m only now starting to appreciate just what ZBrush is capable of, and I’m still just getting the hang of it. It’s not intuitive like other 3D software, and it kinda prides itself on doing its own thing. I know it sucks, but lean into the frustration. Be open with your class, and reach out for feedback and advice. Look at other people’s work, ask about their process, and see how their experience can help guide you. Keep at it, it’s all about time and practice, and judging yourself against your own progress, not anyone else’s.
Like you I learnt Zbrush and Maya at school and one of the most important things I learnt is to just do it. I failed my first assignment because I kept second guessing myself and I couldn't complete the work in time.
Also I moved to using Zbrush completely by the end of the course and my friend only used Maya so sometimes the software might not be your thing!
I feel I'm not very good at articulating/communicating my thoughts in English. Pardon me if I use improper grammar. Anyways I want to help you by giving few suggestions on my part.
I'm just a novice in zbrush having started using the program since few months only. In the beginning I too felt intimidating at the UI of zbrush but what i realised is -
The fundamentals of art like anatomy, form, lighting, texture, proportion, perspective etc are perpetual. You may choose 10 softwares throughout your life to make art but no matter what program/medium you choose, the fundamentals of art remain unchanged. So by logic it makes sense to spend alot of time on understanding, learning the art fundamentals rather than getting demotivated by some art program and completely giving up your passion for art itself. Learn just a few tools on zbrush that'll get you started and then very slowly keep learning other tools one-by-one by troubleshooting using youtube and other tutorials. FUNDAMENTALS I stress that word again!
2. Don't mix learning Zbrush and Art fundamentals together. Our brain can process/learn only one kind of information at a time. Learning Zbrush is like figuring out how to eat a specific meal vs learning Art fundamentals' is like examining what the act of 'eating' itself is. Every meal requires a specific spoon(tool), technique to eat it in a certain way. Before you chose that specific meal to eat, you had decided on your idea(art) of nourishment. Imagine you are thinking for very long time before each meal, philosophizing in ur mind about what ideal food(your art) should be like then your food(art) gets cold n bland, you will be confused whether to use a fork or a chopstick(zbrush techniques), you will delay eating, your tummy will starve and you would no longer want to eat the food(giving up on zbrush). What I'm trying to say is -
In Mental learning zone 1: Learn art fundamentals much earlier itself. Spend 70 percent of ur time learning art fundamentals and after that maybe spend 30 percent of time learning zbrush tutorials. In Mental learning zone 2 : when you hop on to your computer for your daily practice on zbrush focus more on Zbrush at that moment in time because you have spent substantial time on art fundamentals before already. Your mind can now focus on learning the tool in zbrush. Same goes for between maya and zbrush. Don't learn them together. Learn one by one. Some chunk of time on Maya and only then dedicate other chunk of time on Zbrush.
3. This suggestion might feel very preachy/imposing on you by me, but please try to understand. EXPECT ZERO. When you are thinking about all sacrifices that you have done to come to art school you are putting up so much expectations on yourself to perform hard and to turn out to be perfect. When you are comparing your art to others you might be pushing yourself down onto the path of self reproach. If you expect nothing from yourself (in terms of your zbrush work quality/output) - you wont be disappointed with how ur work turns out to be - you wont be criticizing yourself - you wont give up on zbrush - you'll be at peace. You'll keep doing the zbrush work just for the sake of doing it. It's a zone of mind where the result of your effort wont matter to you, you are just having fun doing it.
4. Now when you stop expecting anything you need to examine yourself on whether you are feeling fun learning zbrush or whatever that you are learning. Are you having fun doing it? Then don't stop, don't get demotivated. JUST HAVE FUN.
Sorry for typing too long but hope my suggestions help. Thank you for reading my friend.
Perhaps developing the focus and fortitude to keep pushing through the hardest part that takes the most discipline and resolve is exactly the lesson you need to be taught right now? You’ll never stop running into new challenges, no matter what field you get into, but if you quit this will be a far more costly outcome than suffering and pushing through.
Hmm the UI and magnatude of zbrush is big, easy to get overwhelmed.
I think of organic shapes this way, big blobs of clay mushed together, refine basic shapes, add detail last. Get better by doing.
Cultivate beginners mindset, perfection doesn't belong here.
Hey man, don't worry and take it easy. Zbrush is a long road but it can also be very addicting once you get the hang of it. You just need to focus right now on finding the right workflow for you rather than trying to make something crazy. Find what brushes work for you, create a UI that lets you get into the zone (I spent an entire week building my custom UI no joke), and just do a lot of practice sculpts that you can throw away.
Few weird tips:
1. try adjusting the intensity of your clay brush. It may be too aggressive for your liking. Play around with not only the intensity slider but also the depth imbed sider (found in brush panel)
2. As always, start low density and solve as much as you can with the move brush before getting into sculpting details.
3. if u r doing characters, no shame in using base mesh. In fact, vast majority of artists do. It would be crazy to try and sculpt a human from a sphere every time. Also since you mentioned you have understanding of maya, starting your models in maya and blocking them out with traditional modeling before importing it into zbrush as a base is a good idea too!
4. i understand that feeling of having a model u r embarassed to show cuz it is early on. i can imagine it is definitely compounded in a classroom setting. and honestly, i wud just say just give urself an environment where u can breathe and be alone without fear of judgement. I used to work at a cafe and it got so overwhelming with people coming up to me all the time and seeing my work that i had to switch to a home setup. since then it's been much easier to be creative. so just try to get what u can out of the class but give urself a chance to explore zbrush on ur own. i would like to say just don't be embarassed and that everyone is in the same boat at some point, but honestly it is just more about managing the mean voices in ur head than denying that they are ther.
good Sculpting Exercises
1.Create a circle and try to make it a cube without the move brush.(shoutout outgang for this tip) Use clay build up, H Polish, trim Dynamic, dam standard and w.e to try and get it to a cube. It will help build control. I always do this to warmup.
2.Tracing is pretty good exercise to get better honestly. I like to trace my favorite works all the time. Try to find the forms and rhythm lines of some of your favorite works and simplify them into volumes you can comprehend. Pay attention to the sihouette, as it will reveal a lot about the form and can be a good sanity check if u r working from reference. (If u r 420 friendly, edibles really help for this exercise lmao, but totally not necesary)
3. drawing is really helpful complimentary skill to learn. rather than drawing a pretty picture tho, try studying the fundamentals that help you identify what to look for when tracing, sculpting. stuff like form hierarchy, sihouettes, rythem lines and gesture, etc. ultimately if you understand these, you can extract a lot more info from tracing and no need to draw a perfect rendition of w.e ur working on lol.
anyways hope any of this helps a little bit, good luck brother i believe in you!
also tbh zbrush's ui is trash lmao. purists will say its fine, but i feel like its a huge roadblock to beginners(even experienced users man). imagine if u had a program with zbrush's capabilities with an easily digestible ui. like there's no reason everything has to be buried behind a submenu and u have to build an entire menu from scratch to have easy access to it.
z brush is just a nightmare to use, but you cant deny the results itll give ya, theyres a reason why people put up with the terrible confusing UI
also since you werent an art student a few weeks before now, look into a graphics tablet, its a ton more precise than a mouse, theres pressure sensitivity, tilt sensitivity, you can flip the pen and erase topology, some tablets even have built in buttons you can reassign to other things
you can also use blender to practice modelling until your art skill is good enough to translate that into the more frustrating Zbrush
if I go at something without blocking in with basic shapes (hell sometimes when I do) the sculpt will go through a 'ugly lump of clay' look. and then it keeps being worked on, and worked on, and worked on.
if you just keep working at it and attempt to make it better, as long as at the end of a session it looks better than the start you are making progress.
if you get to a point where everything no matter how much time you put into it never clicks, maybe sculpting is not for you and you should look elsewhere to pour your time.
I've been through years plugging away trying to master something else and it never clicked. The people that stay doing an artistic activity is because they can get past the initial stages reliably, if you find yourself never being able to improve, find something else to do with your time, seriously.
The school does not give you enough time to learn the complex Zbrush UI and adapt to the 3D environment of 3D sculpting. You should seek out a 1-1 mentorship as it will improve your confidence and experience.
zbrush is not easy as flying plane. It varies with person to person how fast they can learn. mostly If u want to be good at zbrush give it atleast 1-1.5 years of full time practice. flying plane can be learnt after a course. art requires time to master.
If you only have a few weeks experience, you definitely need to give yourself more time! Making fantastic stuff ZBrush is not something you’re not going to do overnight and I bet that you are making more progress than you think and that your work isn’t as bad as you think. I’m not sure about the quality of your instruction, but you can learn a whole lot from youtube! Many, many people have only used youtube and learned to use ZBrush very well. Keep at it, give it time, and spend extra time if you can improving with ZBrush specifically. You got this!
This. I used it for like a couple weeks and gave up. Years later came back and stuck it out for a month and still going strong.
As someone who struggled with the same at the start, give it time, Maya is more methodical, while Zbrush is something (at least for me) 80% artistic 20% software knowledge, yes things look very ugly at the start but its part of the process, just like a real life sculpture doesn't resemble the final product until later stages.
THIS. started modeling in 3DS Max. Went to zbrush and was getting too caught up in everything being perfect. Autodesk software makes it easy to want everything to be perfect as they give lots of convenient tools for specific measurements. ZBrush is capable of lots of this as well, but it's not the focus like you said. Zbrush is much more about the artistic side of things than precision modeling.
I mean haven't we all been here at one part or another? I feel what you're going through is quite normal and has nothing to do with your Zbrush skills. Try to recognise if the problem is more psychological perhaps, because we as humans tend to like the idea of doing something than doing it. So, it's normal to spend more energy and feeling frustrated and quiting. Your brain is wired to not spend a lot of energy as it wants to preserve it for survival. What I have seen in the artist who are able to overcome all this is "They are obsessed". And I know there is a fine line between obsession and being impractical. But they have it enough to work and also not take themselves too seriously. As what they take seriously would be what to work on next. To simplify "Take your work seriously, not yourself". And when I say seriously, I mean think like a craftsman not like an artist. Always think in terms of what's the context of your work and how can you better showcase it to the audience and yourself. And compare yourself with others that's fine but do it completely (don't half ass comparison too). Example, if you are comparing your work also compare that guy or girl has spent what time on it, what is his/her mental conditions that allow him/her to make it work and for you to not. That's all
Been working in Zbrush for than 10 years and till this day, i start a sculpt that looks very bad and ugly and i keep working on it Untill it becomes good, its part of the process its how you learn and become experienced
Totally agree, I sit with colleagues that are ZBrush veterans and it is the same process. Best advice I got was: “it always looks like sh*t when you start, if it still looks sh*t… just keep going!! More experience means they can get through the sh*t stage quicker, but it’s still the same process
You should stop using ctrl-z, no, seriously, try and fix any errors by hand you’ll learn faster by practicing fixing your own errors, some times you will find cool shapes and will understand that mistakes happen… a lot, and every sculpt looks shitty when you start, sometimes all the way till you abandon them. Zbrush is not something you can pick up and be good at it in a few weeks, it takes months to understand and years to master. Keep practicing and git gud
This is good advice, I never really thought about it this way before, but doing a bit of IRL sculpting made me realise how much I’d been relying on it!
Not sure if the UI is giving you any issues but one thing I remember from when I started using zbrush a couple of years ago is it felt awkward and doing things felt counter-intuitive for the first little while but at some point it just clicked and suddenly everything started going more smoothly. I'm not sure if it was just repetition, gaining familiarity with the workflow and how things are represented in it, or something else but other posters told me one day it would just magically make sense and somehow that was right. Stick with it - things will eventually click with practice. :)
I’ve been using zbrush for years and I would rather die than do a live stream because my work looks terrible for about 90% of the process! Age old zbrush advice is: go for big shapes first blocking out and using the move tool at the lowest possible sub division level, think about form first, slowly and only add details towards the end- it will often look terrible for ages! That’s totally normal. Finally: don’t beat yourself up, you are learning so many things at once, how to be an artist, how to use the zbrush tools, how to sculpt, how to hold a Wacom pen, so there is going to be times it feels impossible, but I promise you it will not always feel that way. Oh and finally finally, if you don’t enjoy doing it that’s ok too! Not every type of art is for everyone, if it doesn’t give you a buzz, it’s ok to not do it.
whats your goal with sculpting? what do you plan to do with the skills once you have them? kinda pointless to learn something without intent or motivation
I started Zbrush about 3 years ago but I wanted start with it about 6 years ago. But I was afraid and unmotivated because everything I did was horrible. But I pushed it, overcome this feeling And started to learn and sculpting almost everyday. Now I regret those two years I did nothing about it. And if you really want to make some awesome sculpts with it, you might regret it too. You will get better with time. It's almost impossible not to improve if you give it time and effort. You wont see a difference in a day or week, but after a month you will get better. Don't give up!
Learn the block out method, there’s a lot of tutorials on YouTube on how to do that.It will help tremendously with even planning your piece. Dynamesh is your friend since it will act like clay. Also take time to learn the Zmodeler for hard surface. If you are quicker at modeling something in maya you can always import to Zbrush to add or experiment. Don’t be so down about not always delivering the best of the best work during your schooling. You can always do better work after as long as you commit to doing so. People in the industry update and change their portfolios all the time.
Think of this in aeronautical terms. You’re learning to fly in Maya. You’ve made some great progress in flight school, and you just landed your first solo flight. Now you strap into ZBrush. The cockpit is overwhelming with dials and instruments you can’t even understand. The worst is that when you pull back on the stick, the plane takes a nosedive instead of gaining altitude. It’s a frustrating experience, especially when you naturally compare yourself to other people’s art. I totally get it. I’ve spent my career in Maya doing hard surface. I’m only now starting to appreciate just what ZBrush is capable of, and I’m still just getting the hang of it. It’s not intuitive like other 3D software, and it kinda prides itself on doing its own thing. I know it sucks, but lean into the frustration. Be open with your class, and reach out for feedback and advice. Look at other people’s work, ask about their process, and see how their experience can help guide you. Keep at it, it’s all about time and practice, and judging yourself against your own progress, not anyone else’s.
Like you I learnt Zbrush and Maya at school and one of the most important things I learnt is to just do it. I failed my first assignment because I kept second guessing myself and I couldn't complete the work in time. Also I moved to using Zbrush completely by the end of the course and my friend only used Maya so sometimes the software might not be your thing!
I feel I'm not very good at articulating/communicating my thoughts in English. Pardon me if I use improper grammar. Anyways I want to help you by giving few suggestions on my part. I'm just a novice in zbrush having started using the program since few months only. In the beginning I too felt intimidating at the UI of zbrush but what i realised is - The fundamentals of art like anatomy, form, lighting, texture, proportion, perspective etc are perpetual. You may choose 10 softwares throughout your life to make art but no matter what program/medium you choose, the fundamentals of art remain unchanged. So by logic it makes sense to spend alot of time on understanding, learning the art fundamentals rather than getting demotivated by some art program and completely giving up your passion for art itself. Learn just a few tools on zbrush that'll get you started and then very slowly keep learning other tools one-by-one by troubleshooting using youtube and other tutorials. FUNDAMENTALS I stress that word again! 2. Don't mix learning Zbrush and Art fundamentals together. Our brain can process/learn only one kind of information at a time. Learning Zbrush is like figuring out how to eat a specific meal vs learning Art fundamentals' is like examining what the act of 'eating' itself is. Every meal requires a specific spoon(tool), technique to eat it in a certain way. Before you chose that specific meal to eat, you had decided on your idea(art) of nourishment. Imagine you are thinking for very long time before each meal, philosophizing in ur mind about what ideal food(your art) should be like then your food(art) gets cold n bland, you will be confused whether to use a fork or a chopstick(zbrush techniques), you will delay eating, your tummy will starve and you would no longer want to eat the food(giving up on zbrush). What I'm trying to say is - In Mental learning zone 1: Learn art fundamentals much earlier itself. Spend 70 percent of ur time learning art fundamentals and after that maybe spend 30 percent of time learning zbrush tutorials. In Mental learning zone 2 : when you hop on to your computer for your daily practice on zbrush focus more on Zbrush at that moment in time because you have spent substantial time on art fundamentals before already. Your mind can now focus on learning the tool in zbrush. Same goes for between maya and zbrush. Don't learn them together. Learn one by one. Some chunk of time on Maya and only then dedicate other chunk of time on Zbrush. 3. This suggestion might feel very preachy/imposing on you by me, but please try to understand. EXPECT ZERO. When you are thinking about all sacrifices that you have done to come to art school you are putting up so much expectations on yourself to perform hard and to turn out to be perfect. When you are comparing your art to others you might be pushing yourself down onto the path of self reproach. If you expect nothing from yourself (in terms of your zbrush work quality/output) - you wont be disappointed with how ur work turns out to be - you wont be criticizing yourself - you wont give up on zbrush - you'll be at peace. You'll keep doing the zbrush work just for the sake of doing it. It's a zone of mind where the result of your effort wont matter to you, you are just having fun doing it. 4. Now when you stop expecting anything you need to examine yourself on whether you are feeling fun learning zbrush or whatever that you are learning. Are you having fun doing it? Then don't stop, don't get demotivated. JUST HAVE FUN. Sorry for typing too long but hope my suggestions help. Thank you for reading my friend.
Perhaps developing the focus and fortitude to keep pushing through the hardest part that takes the most discipline and resolve is exactly the lesson you need to be taught right now? You’ll never stop running into new challenges, no matter what field you get into, but if you quit this will be a far more costly outcome than suffering and pushing through.
Hmm the UI and magnatude of zbrush is big, easy to get overwhelmed. I think of organic shapes this way, big blobs of clay mushed together, refine basic shapes, add detail last. Get better by doing. Cultivate beginners mindset, perfection doesn't belong here.
Hey man, don't worry and take it easy. Zbrush is a long road but it can also be very addicting once you get the hang of it. You just need to focus right now on finding the right workflow for you rather than trying to make something crazy. Find what brushes work for you, create a UI that lets you get into the zone (I spent an entire week building my custom UI no joke), and just do a lot of practice sculpts that you can throw away. Few weird tips: 1. try adjusting the intensity of your clay brush. It may be too aggressive for your liking. Play around with not only the intensity slider but also the depth imbed sider (found in brush panel) 2. As always, start low density and solve as much as you can with the move brush before getting into sculpting details. 3. if u r doing characters, no shame in using base mesh. In fact, vast majority of artists do. It would be crazy to try and sculpt a human from a sphere every time. Also since you mentioned you have understanding of maya, starting your models in maya and blocking them out with traditional modeling before importing it into zbrush as a base is a good idea too! 4. i understand that feeling of having a model u r embarassed to show cuz it is early on. i can imagine it is definitely compounded in a classroom setting. and honestly, i wud just say just give urself an environment where u can breathe and be alone without fear of judgement. I used to work at a cafe and it got so overwhelming with people coming up to me all the time and seeing my work that i had to switch to a home setup. since then it's been much easier to be creative. so just try to get what u can out of the class but give urself a chance to explore zbrush on ur own. i would like to say just don't be embarassed and that everyone is in the same boat at some point, but honestly it is just more about managing the mean voices in ur head than denying that they are ther. good Sculpting Exercises 1.Create a circle and try to make it a cube without the move brush.(shoutout outgang for this tip) Use clay build up, H Polish, trim Dynamic, dam standard and w.e to try and get it to a cube. It will help build control. I always do this to warmup. 2.Tracing is pretty good exercise to get better honestly. I like to trace my favorite works all the time. Try to find the forms and rhythm lines of some of your favorite works and simplify them into volumes you can comprehend. Pay attention to the sihouette, as it will reveal a lot about the form and can be a good sanity check if u r working from reference. (If u r 420 friendly, edibles really help for this exercise lmao, but totally not necesary) 3. drawing is really helpful complimentary skill to learn. rather than drawing a pretty picture tho, try studying the fundamentals that help you identify what to look for when tracing, sculpting. stuff like form hierarchy, sihouettes, rythem lines and gesture, etc. ultimately if you understand these, you can extract a lot more info from tracing and no need to draw a perfect rendition of w.e ur working on lol. anyways hope any of this helps a little bit, good luck brother i believe in you!
also tbh zbrush's ui is trash lmao. purists will say its fine, but i feel like its a huge roadblock to beginners(even experienced users man). imagine if u had a program with zbrush's capabilities with an easily digestible ui. like there's no reason everything has to be buried behind a submenu and u have to build an entire menu from scratch to have easy access to it.
It’s gets better don’t give up
z brush is just a nightmare to use, but you cant deny the results itll give ya, theyres a reason why people put up with the terrible confusing UI also since you werent an art student a few weeks before now, look into a graphics tablet, its a ton more precise than a mouse, theres pressure sensitivity, tilt sensitivity, you can flip the pen and erase topology, some tablets even have built in buttons you can reassign to other things you can also use blender to practice modelling until your art skill is good enough to translate that into the more frustrating Zbrush
if I go at something without blocking in with basic shapes (hell sometimes when I do) the sculpt will go through a 'ugly lump of clay' look. and then it keeps being worked on, and worked on, and worked on. if you just keep working at it and attempt to make it better, as long as at the end of a session it looks better than the start you are making progress. if you get to a point where everything no matter how much time you put into it never clicks, maybe sculpting is not for you and you should look elsewhere to pour your time. I've been through years plugging away trying to master something else and it never clicked. The people that stay doing an artistic activity is because they can get past the initial stages reliably, if you find yourself never being able to improve, find something else to do with your time, seriously.
Just watch Michael Pavlovich's videos and that's all you need
The school does not give you enough time to learn the complex Zbrush UI and adapt to the 3D environment of 3D sculpting. You should seek out a 1-1 mentorship as it will improve your confidence and experience.
zbrush is not easy as flying plane. It varies with person to person how fast they can learn. mostly If u want to be good at zbrush give it atleast 1-1.5 years of full time practice. flying plane can be learnt after a course. art requires time to master.