Adding detail to a curved subdivided surface
I'm trying to recreate this shape, with a view to 3D printing a new one with my own pattern on the top. These are my steps I've done so far:
- I first photoscanned it with my phone which gave me a very rough shape as a guide,
- I used the smoothing sculpt tool to remove the pattern from the photoscanned object.
- I then poly modelled the basic shape with Shrink Wrap and Snap Nearest Surface enabled so that my new geometry followed the guide.
- I now have a quad-modelled shape with a subdivision modifier applied (I still need to make some changes, the curves on the bottom edge still need work).
How would be best to add the detail of the pattern onto it? My current plan is, to now use my nicely smoothed, subdivided shape as a guide for the curve and use shrink-wrap again, then manually poly-model the detail onto the shrink-wrapped surface before extruding it. That way it removes the problem of the photoscan surface being kind of bumpy.
Or am I overthinking it and adding an unnecessary step? Also, is the flow in my geometry any good?
Posted Jun 17, 2026, 3:04 PM UTC