Best Ways to Achieve this organic look?

Question

Specifically the holes in the mesh. Not sure the best way to approach this. I've tested using a Voronoi Texture with Displacement but to even get a somewhat similar design the polycount becomes too extreme.

Any Help is appreciated, thank you!

Answer 1

So many ways to go about it that it's hard to give a definitive answer, but here are some methods and resources you might wanna look at:

1. Just trial and error with various modifiers. Here's the default monkey with some modifiers on it I just put together in about 45 seconds:

2. The Tissue add-on (free). It can look intimidating at first, but it's actually relatively straightforward and really flexible and powerful once you learn it. It comes with Blender already, but the Github version is usually a little ahead in terms of updates. The documentation is very helpful.

3. Geometry Nodes. Not entirely different from using modifiers, or Tissue, but it can be more performant and flexible, not to mention future-proof, than both. The example below is from Benny Govaert's Twitter. There's a YouTube video by Jimmy Gunawan which takes that node setup from Twitter to recreate and expand upon it. It mostly revolves around the Dual Mesh node, which is also a feature in Tissue.

4. BY-GEN add-on (free, with some paid presets).

Answer 2

In order to keep a rather low-polygon mesh, you could create an icosphere, bevel all in Edit mode:

Select one of the resulting hexagons, then ShiftG (Select Similar) > Polygon Sides and AltE > Extrude Faces Along Normals:

Shade Smooth your object, give it a Subdivision Surface modifier:

In Sculpt mode, deform it with the Grab brush and others:

From Kuboå's answer I realize that you may need hollow holes, in that case remove the hexagons, give your object a Solidify before the Subdivision Surface:

Then deform: