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Udemy3D ModelingPaid courseBeginner levelCertificate

Zbrush Hard Surface Sculpting for Beginners (Udemy.com)

Be able to model and sculpt all sorts of hard surface props using Zbrush.

4.6
250 reviews

Created by: Nexttut Education Pvt.Ltd.

Last updated June 2023

Our take

Based on the ratings of 250 students, a sample of their written reviews and the syllabus, as the course stood in June 2023. No course pays to be reviewed.

Abraham Leal's course is a project-based look at hard surface work in ZBrush. It runs 9.3 hours across 44 lectures, opens with a short tools section, then builds a pokeball, a revolver, a knife, orc armor and sci-fi armor. The topics include ZModeler, live booleans, polygroups, Bevel Pro and retopology. The Beginner label is a bit misleading. The description itself says it is not for absolute ZBrush beginners, and it expects you to know the interface already.

Most of the 250 ratings are four or five stars. Happy reviewers call the teaching engaging and bite-sized, and a couple say they picked up techniques they had not seen before. One long-time follower calls Leal the best teacher they have had. The complaints are consistent, though. Lower-star reviews say he moves too fast, skips small steps like how to soften the edges of a boolean cube, and leaves in mistakes and retakes. Two ask for on-screen keystrokes. One reviewer says Q&A questions go unanswered.

The last update was June 2023, so newer ZBrush versions may look a little different, though reviews as late as 2025 still recommend it. At 9.3 hours it is short and focused, with no quizzes or exercises, just follow-along builds. It suits someone with basic ZBrush skills who wants a first real pass at hard surface. If you are brand new to the software, start with an intro course first.

Best forSculptors who know the ZBrush interface and want to build a revolver, knife and armor start to finish.
Skip it ifYou have never opened ZBrush, or you need slow, step-by-step narration with keystrokes shown on screen.

Pros

  • Five follow-along builds: pokeball, revolver, knife, orc armor and sci-fi armor
  • Covers ZModeler, live booleans, polygroups, Bevel Pro and retopology in one course
  • Reviewers call the teaching engaging and bite-sized, and say they learned new techniques
  • Rated 4.6 from 250 reviews, with 156 of them five stars

Cons

  • Fast pace and skipped steps, like softening a boolean cube's edges, trip up newer users
  • Mistakes and retakes are left in, and keystrokes are not shown on screen
  • Last updated June 2023, and one reviewer says Q&A questions go unanswered
This is an amazing course. Everything is explained very well, and i am able to follow along and make very cool things!
Henrik Holm, a student

Labeled Beginner, but it assumes basic ZBrush interface knowledge. Better for early intermediates.

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What you will learn

  • Revolver Modelling
  • Knife Modelling
  • Sci-fi Armor Modelling
  • Fantasy Armor Modelling

Course content

7 sections · 44 lectures · 9.4 hours of video 1 article

  1. 1Hard Surface Tools 3 free previews7 lectures · 48 min
  2. 2Pokeball Modelling6 lectures · 55 min
  3. 3Revolver Modelling8 lectures · 2.2 hours
  4. 4Knife Modelling7 lectures · 1.7 hours
  5. 5Orc Armor Sculpting5 lectures · 1.3 hours
  6. 6Sci Fi Armor Sculpting10 lectures · 2.5 hours
  7. 7Final Words1 lecture · 2 min

Who it is for

The instructor says it suits

  • This course is aimed towards beginner levels students who have a basic understanding of the Zbrush interface and want to learn workflows and techniques for hard surface sculpting.

What you need before you start

  • I expect you to have some sort of basic zbrush experience.
  • You should have Zbrush installed on your computer.

How it compares

Against the other 545 rated Udemy courses in 3D Modeling on CourseDuck:

  • Rating4.6 out of 5higher than 56% of them
  • Reviews250#271 of 546 by number of reviews
  • Length9.3 hourslonger than 64% of them
  • Last updatedJune 2023more recently than 56% of them

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Course Description

WHY SHOULD YOU LEARN FROM ME:

My Name is Abraham Leal, I have 10 years of experience in the 3D Industry and I will be your instructor throughout this course. I specialize in modelling, texturing and lookdev for the videogame industry.

Do you want to learn the tools and secrets to create hard surface models inside of Zbrush? Would you like to model guns, props and armor? If that is the case then I welcome you to Nextuts Zbrush Hard Surface Tecniques for Beginners.


BENEFITS :

By the end of this course,

  • you'll be able to model and sculpt all sorts of hard surface props

  • You will be understand the inner working of all the hard surface tools inside of zbrush


WHAT WILL I LEARN:

  • Modelling with Zmodeler

  • LiveBooleans Workflow

  • Polygroups and its uses

  • Mesh Generation Tecniques

  • Bevel Pro and Knife Brushes

  • Retopology and Decimation


COURSE PROJECTS:

We will first learn about the most common tecniques and we will then go over 5 different projects for you to follow along. This projects are designed to teach you the tools and workflow necessary to create amazing art. We will model simple objects like a pokeball, and then move on to more complicated assets such as a revolver, a knife, fantasy armor and Sci Fi Armor.


IS THIS COURSE RIGHT FOR ME:

  • This course is aimed towards beginner levels students who have a basic understanding of the zbrush interface and want to learn workflows and techniques for hard surface sculpting.

  • If you are interested in a fast and flexible modelling and sculpting workflows that doesn't require external software this course is for you.


WHO IS NOT THE IDEAL STUDENT:

This course is not designed for absolute Zbrush beginners.


WHAT SHOULD I KNOW OR HAVE FOR THE COURSE:

  • I expect you to have some sort of basic Zbrush experience.

  • You should have Zbrush installed on your computer.


JOIN ME NOW:

Join me and learn how to create Hard Surface Models in no time!
Read More Beginner Beginner Level product length iconTime: 9.3h

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Instructor Details

Nexttut Education Pvt.Ltd.

Welcome to Nexttut Education, Myself Nalini Kanta Jena, I am the founder and director of Nexttut Education. I have been teaching and working in the game industry since 2008.

I have been teaching here on Udemy since 2017 and have created few bestseller courses. student seems to love my work and I love them as well. Everything was fine but except one problem and that is student's growing demand to create various courses for them. I realize that I can never fulfill such massive number of request to create different courses so that is when Nexttut Education took it's shape.

We only create courses with highly talented professionals who has at least 5+ years off experience working in the film and game industry.

The single goal of Nexttut Education is to help students to become a production ready artist and get jobs wherever they want. We are committed to create high quality professional courses for 3d students. If you are a student learning from any local institution or a 3d artist who has just started working in the industry or an artist who has some years of experience, you have come to the right place.

We love you and your feedback. Please give us feedback on how we can make better courses for you and how we can help you in any ways.

thank you for reading :)

Regards,

Director

Nalini kanta jena

Read More

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Reviews

4.6

250 ratings on Udemy

Select a bar to show only those reviews.Select the bar again to show every rating.

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By Jordan Peoples on 8/4/2026

great tutorial. more keystrokes would be amazing but solid work! worth it.

By Nataly Villanueva on 6/27/2025

It's an end of an era lol. This was a great course, and ive learned so much. Abe is one of the best teachers i've had for 3d.

By John Dow on 6/5/2025

Loved this course, which helped me grasp the hard surface workflow for Zbrush. The instructor is an amazing individual who presents the information in a very engaging and bite-sized manner, making it easy to grasp the subject. Highly recommend in the year 2025

By Nicolò Moretti on 4/29/2025

Seguo i corsi ed i tutorial di Abe da anni, è il miglior maestro che abbia mai avuto. Non smetterò mai di supportarlo e di dirgli "GRAZIE"!

By Aram Bak on 12/27/2023

지브러시로 하드서페이스를 처음 제작해보는 사람에게 유용한 강의 인 것 같아요. 강의의 내용과 자료도 준비가 잘 되어 있다고 느꼈고 도움이 많이 되었습니다. 감사합니다! I think it's recommended for those who try hard surface modeling in zbrush for the first time like me. I thought it's really well prepared lecture. I got lot's of helpful tips through this lecture. Thank you!

By jorge R Cerpa V on 12/16/2023

Saludos. Desde mi punto de vista el curso entrega algunas técnicas que quizás no conozcas, por ejemplo en lo personal este curso me entrego técnicas nuevas para mí que no conocía y que me han servido para seguir avanzando en esto que me apasiona, que es el modelado 3d en zbrush. También decir que para mi este curso es uno mas de otros que sirven para complementar mis conocimientos así que a seguir aprendiendo y comprando cursos.

By Diego Ferreira de Oliveira on 5/14/2023

you guys should DEFINETELY implement keystrokes on your videos... cause not everyone understand if you saying ctrl shift D or ctrl shift B or V or E... so keystrokes sould DEFINETELY be an DEFAULT for every course related to 3D modeling... other than that... yeah good.

By Ravi Modh on 5/11/2023

Gain So Much Knowledge about Hard Surface Modeling In Zbrush.The Way of teaching is Totally understandable.Thank You Abraham.

By Alfredo Herman Castro Ranz on 12/29/2022

Taking this course was extremely helpful. Before taking it I didn't knew a thing about doing hard surfaces on ZBrush or how to do manually retopology for a model. ZModeler seemed too difficult at the time and now I feel a little more comfortable using it and now I know I can complement it with the use of another tools like the slice or knife tool to achieve what I want.

By Nikola Filipovic on 3/9/2022

Very quickly did I start developing a different, mathematical way of thinkig to combine boolean meshes to get intricate geometric results.

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Overall Score : 92 / 100

Zbrush Hard Surface Sculpting for Beginners
Visit course on Udemy Write a review
  • Video Duration: icon 9.3h
  • Price: $69.99
  • Provider: icon Udemy
  • Updated: icon June 2023
  • Level: Beginner Beginner
  • Language: icon English
  • Certificate: icon Yes
  • Lectures:44 in 7 sections
  • Students:2,403
  • Subtitles:1 language
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