Mirroring is one of those features I use constantly. Symmetric letters, duplicated elements, flipped compositions. Nomad Sculpt has several ways to mirror and each works differently.
Symmetry tool (live mirroring)
The most common approach. Turn on symmetry from the symmetry menu and everything you do on one side mirrors to the other in real time.
Works on X, Y, or Z axis. For letters like A, H, M, O, T, U, V, W, X, Y, use X-axis symmetry. Build one half, the other follows automatically.
Important: symmetry only works while it's active. It mirrors your brush strokes, not the mesh itself. When you turn it off, the mesh stays symmetric but new edits won't be mirrored.
Mirror function (flip the mesh)
Different from symmetry. This actually duplicates and flips the geometry. Go to the transform menu, find Mirror, and select the axis.
Use this when you want to create a mirrored copy of an object. Duplicate the object first, then mirror the copy. Now you have both halves as separate objects. Useful for compositions where you want symmetric elements but need to edit them independently.
Gizmo flip (quick negative scale)
Select an object, open the gizmo (transform tool), and scale it to -1 on one axis. This flips the object in place.
Fast and simple but it reverses the normals (the surface faces inward). After flipping, you may need to fix normals in the mesh menu. Otherwise the lighting looks wrong.
Boolean mirror
For more complex mirroring: model one half of your piece, duplicate it, mirror the duplicate, then use boolean union to merge them into a single mesh. This gives you a perfectly symmetric object with clean topology.
Voxel remesh after the boolean operation to clean up the merge seam.
When to use which
Symmetry tool: while you're actively building something symmetric. Letters, balanced compositions, centered designs.
Mirror function: when you need a separate mirrored copy. Left/right arrangements, reflected compositions.
Gizmo flip: quick flip during composition. Rearranging elements, testing orientations.
Boolean mirror: final, clean symmetric merge. Production-ready objects that need unified topology.
Tips
Always check your axis. Mirroring on the wrong axis is a common mistake. X is left-right, Y is up-down, Z is front-back.
For 3D type compositions, I often build one word, duplicate it, mirror it, and place both versions to create symmetric arrangements. Faster than building the same thing twice.
About the Creator
nebenzu is run by Ben, a Munich-based designer and 3D artist with a community of 128,000+ followers across Instagram, TikTok, Threads, YouTube, and X, focused on Nomad Sculpt workflows. The courses come from years of daily work in Nomad Sculpt, creating 3D typography, materials, and visual experiments.
You can find free tutorials and behind-the-scenes content on the nebenzu YouTube channel and Instagram.
