Likeness studies, critiques and feedback

womball

I've been working on this on my downtime. However I think I'm in a tweaking loop where I can't seem to get the likeness and am spending way to much time. Hopefully a fresh set of eyes will help me out. I want to match the refrence images, but each time I do in one view it doesnt' line up with another. I often forget the microexpressions which change locations of features as well.  The character is Dean Winchester played by Jensen Ackles. 

slosh

The center of the brow recedes, not bulges like you have now.  I'm assuming you did that looking at the profile image you have of him but in reality, that bump is his outer brow.  The middle dips inward.  One thing is to also have a really good anatomy book handy as nose, lips, eye sockets, ears all have the same muscular properties.  You should refine all of those areas with proper anatomy and not just what you think you see in an image.

womball

Here are some corrections with anatomy help. Not quite there but feels better. A problem I have with front view references is that his head is tilted down so I sometimes miss that. Jaw and mouth still feel wrong though. 

willehrendreich

looks very nice, but the nose and mouth stick out further than they need to. too far forward. not by much, but these likenesses are so hard to nail, that every little bit helps. you should go see mine i just posted of scarlet johannson, and give me pointers!

Mr.Moose

Might want to reduce your geometry as well. Its starting to get muddled up and lumpy in areas ^.^

slosh

Yea, I would drop down to a lower subd to get the likeness looking correct first.  I stay very low til I feel the likeness is recognizable.  Then I move onto to asymmetry and details.  Under the nose looks strange above the upper lip.  You really need to look at muscle structure and anatomy of all the facial keypoints.

Jakub

Like guys are saying, drop down to lower subdivision. If you're using Dynamesh, you shouldn't get higher than 100 before achieving the likeness.

Creating a likeness is a really hard process, which cannot be achieved without anatomy knowledge of the face. You can't just copy the shapes, you need to know what creates them, how, where do they start/end. Study the underlying structure(skull ---> muscles ---> fat), that will help you a lot.

womball

This is starting to feel right. Major trimming of the skull shape and neck size. Jaw line reworked, but is feeling much better. Mouth is redone. Nose is reshaped and more planar. Eyelids were thickened and rotated downward to make the upper eyelid stick out more thick just looks better. I extended the upper eyelidas well which I saw on a lot of classical eyelid studies, that area is obscured by eyelashes. Over exaggerated the  the mouth muscles as well. Ears are more refined. I've been using classical human anatomy book by valerie winslow and some online resources as well. Skulls especially. Would love anatomy of the facial fat though. Never seen anything like that before.

jacob thomas

Coming along. I think you have sunken his cheeks in too much, it feels very form lacking in the jaw/cheek area. In fact, his whole face from below the eye line is too far forward, exaggerating this lack of form.

PyrZern

Jakub said:

Like guys are saying, drop down to lower subdivision. If you're using Dynamesh, you shouldn't get higher than 100 before achieving the likeness.

Note, the Dynamesh number is relative. It depends on the size of the subtool.  Small subtool at 100 dynamesh would be totally destroyed. Whereas very very big subtool dynameshed at 100 might still be too dense.

Jakub

@PyrZern

Right If he wasn't changing the size of initial sphere, then 100 would be fine. (unless it works differently for everyone, then my mistake :P) 

@womball

Skull looks better at this moment, you need to tweak things tho:

- zygomatic bone is too long, imagine that the earhole usually cuts skull in a half(side view). Also, you have to make zygomatic bone more pronounced, it is a bone that "sticks out" 
- he is missing the masseter 
- revisit the area above eyes(glabella, temporal line, frontal prominence)


For the fat, use this chart and try make a research on each fat deposit, that will help you out.

womball

I tried to follow all of the crits. Feels even better. Eyes are a lot smaller which got rid of the cartoony nature of the face. Chin may be off as well as the area under the eyes. The area around brows is very confusing to me.  Some pictures its flat, some there is a pronounced bulge. I think I got the masseter right. 

Mr.Moose

Definitely seeing an improvement in this last post! Keep it up! 

womball

Haven't had a chance to work on him lately. But I feel the base forms are there and his likeness is there. I think its time to second level of details, and hair clumps.