Thoughts on 3D Mudbox tutorial

Making the 3D maquette out of polymer clay aloud for the techniques and process of real world model making to be leant. This way the fundamental principles could be applied when using the Mudbox software.
It was easy to learn how tools worked on a piece of digital clay with a prior knowledge about how the clay would be affected by which tools.
Some tools like the knife or pinch tool acted as they would in reality, other tools cannot exist in reality like the bulge tool.
The most obvious difference between modelling in reality and 3d modelling with software is the wire mesh. Which is important if animation is a factor and when reducing the polygon count.
If the model is thought of in Lego bricks, and the mesh determines where each brick goes, it’s best to have as many parallel lines and straight edges for the bricks to be placed in, so if the model were made out of large Lego bricks it would still look realistic.
The hardest part to learn about the Mudbox software was the strength and size of the tools and knowing how they would affect the model. It is like most crafts, easy to learn but difficult to master. With a physical piece of clay, it is easy to know what will happen when fingers or a tool is used with varying amounts of force and pressure, but with no prior knowledge of Mudbox, there was no way to determine what affect a stylus stroke would have on the model. Luckily for software there is always the undo button, sadly the same cannot be said for real model making.