After creating my first tree using the snakehook method, I didn’t really like this approach because it’s difficult to design the branch structure. I understand Grant did it just as a sculpting introduction - the normal method would be to block out the tree first before sculpting.
So I tried 2 other methods from BlenderSecret’s YouTube channel to design the branch structure before sculpting.
First was the grease pencil method. This is OK, but still quite difficult to accurately control the tree structure and it’s easy to mess up if two grease lines touch:
Next I tried the single-vertex extrude and skin method. This gives very precise control - but after experiencing some serious mesh problems, I’d definitely recommend building each forking branch as a separate object, using a curve instead of a skin, then using boolean operation to combine them seamlessly. That would have saved me hours of tedious manual vertex manipulation to fix it.
At least it turned out OK in the end. Probably should have used a leafier texture though, these leaves are a bit thin and make the tree look not very green.
