In the instructable i'll go over the basic of sculpting a creature for 3D printing. The application i'm using is Zbrush but other application such as mudbox, blender have similar sculpting features it can also be apply to regular sculpting clay method. The advantage of creating a figure in 3D application is you are able to adjust, scale and undo and are not restricted to the material.

Step 1: Begining the Body

start with a basic shape and block out shape. when the desired form is establish begin adding fine details eyes, mouth, fins, muscles.

Step 2: Legs

start with basic shape, create a duplicate so you have two tube. Begin adjusting the shape to form a leg shape when desired shape is form. Increase the sub division mesh level to begin adding detail.

Step 3:

as before start with a basic shape block out the form. Increase the mesh resolution and begin detailing.

Step 4:

the hands and arm process is similar to the leg. begin with a basic shape block out the fingers refine the detail. Add cylindrical tube to create arms. and begin to join all the separate parts together (in Zbrush you can merge all the part together and DynaMesh to fuse all the part together).

Step 5: Evaluating the Figure

when the part are fuse together the figure can be adjusted to desired pose. i this case i only made adjustment to the arms pose. So it will be easier to set up for print. I save it out as a STL and begin 3D print the figure. The end result are print in black ABS and Blue PLA.