Here is a render in Marmoset from Enzo’s superhero concept. All the high-frequency details, seams and panels were created in Substance 3D Painter. This help gives you a lot more control and is non-destructive in case you want to change and adjust things later on!

A few days ago I posted a smart material and one of the messages I got was something like: “Oh wow… I could never get to that level. How many days did you spend on this?” And that made me smile. Because the material looked cool… but it was actually incredibly simple. I didn’t spend days on it. I didn’t build some crazy 40 layer monster. When we think about “advanced” or “complex” materials in Substance Painter, it’s easy to assume we need tons of layers, complex generators and super detailed masks. But most of the time what makes a material feel good is controlled variation. Let’s say you’re building a synthetic fabric for a superhero suit. Stay with me for a second. Don’t start with micro detail.

The new Retopology Brush introduced in the recent ZBrush update (2026.1) is one of those small additions that ends up being a real game changer. Like most things in ZBrush, it takes a bit of practice to get comfortable with it, but once it clicks you can confidently retopologise an entire model using this single tool.

Here’s a fun technique for creating the effect of a puffy jacket in 5 steps with zero sculpting.

In this tip I’m going to show you a quick and easy way to texture a head in ZBrush using the spotlight projection with a couple of really handy tricks.