[WIP] Self Portrait - Help me improve!

Wolves

Hi, I have to create a self portrait for a uni project and would love any critique and help you could offer. I'm still working on it and I have quite a bit still to do but any help you could offer is appreciated!

I'm doing the hair through the transparency technique and it's taking a while. Any tips would be awesome!

Thank you
♥

whats_true

Some presentations notes:
-Pull all your hair back for your reference photo. Hair is "easy" to get in later, but its blocking features like the ears and stuff that can help while skulpting. Worry about it later. Get your face looking like your face, then do the hair later.
-Make your sculpt grey or something. Adding make up with a pale color gives it a reallllly creepy feeling right now.


In anycase, neck in the skulpt is flowing out. Necks dont do that for the most part. It goes stright down. In fact, it'll be good if you knew why features of your face are the way they are.


The over all impression im getting from your sculpt is blobby. Your face is a lot more defined and smooth, around the neck and chin area specifically compared to the skulpt. If you were to break up your face into planes and go from there, it might help to get your definition right.


Are you working in Zbrush at all?

Wolves

Yes I am, I'm swapping between Mudbox, Maya and Zbrush. Thank you for your help so far! I'll try work into the face some more.

Brian "Panda" Choi

If you can, I'd recommend bringing your sculpt into mudbox and throwing a gray matcap on it so we can analyze your sculpt better.

Wolves

Here's the Zbrush sculpt, I'm going to be adding a body later, so just ignore that it's floating for now. Thank you.

Brian "Panda" Choi

Do you have multiple angles as well?

Wolves

Is this okay?

BagelHero

You really need to take refs without your hair being painfully in the way. You need a clear view of your features.
Also, make sure perspective is on when you sculpt. There's a lot of strange issues on this sculpt, it's really at no point to be projecting textures onto just yet! Keep working it You might want to go back to a lower subdivision for now, too, until you nail the major forms.

Brian "Panda" Choi

Also, I recommend using IMGUR to hosts images in Polycount using the BBC code. Makes the image thumbnail and image pop up in the thread directly.

Wolves

Thank you for the advice so far guys! I have taken some pics with my hair out of the way but I'm trying to get it to look as much as the reference as I can. It's due in soon so I'm doing my best to improve it while juggling everything else too. :P

I've fixed the neck, added a body, and changed the face a little bit? Any more advice? The back of the head looks a bit weird to me but since it'll be covered with hair I'm not focusing on that currently.

Please also ignore the hands for now as I need to work on them still.

Please give me direct things I can improve!







Thank you!

BagelHero

Lower subdiv so its easier to create flowing forms as opposed to lumpy ones, and never use Red Wax matcap for sculpting. Basic Material or Basic Material 2 are more accurate.
Rework the lips and you need a little more bulk on the upper cheek.
For the lips:



Good luck

Wolves

Thank you very much! That was really helpful. I found ZBrush lost the lower subdivisions somehow when I went back to the file so I'm guess I'm stuck with lumpy unless there's a way to make a higher res sculpt lower res?




Thank you!

Stirls

I've noticed that you're also sculpting it asymmetrically. I highly recommend sculpting it symetrically first, and then going back afterwards and making all of the important changes. Study muscle structure and landmarks of the face and try to match those up.

Likenesses are tough, even if it is your own face. Some landmarks to look for are the underside of the jaw, the angle between eyes and nostrils, etc.

Wolves

Because I sculpted it asymmetrically when I first made it, when I try to sculpt symmetrically for some reason one side the brush works on but the other side its a lot lighter, so it doesn't work for me. ): No idea how that happened even.

Sanislov

Couse you need to start it symmetrical. Brush cant really find the same surface in symmetry if the base model is asymetrical. Try apply smart resym.

Stirls

Also, start over. I dont think you're getting anywhere with this one.