It's definitely good to have something this specific. I feel like I can work better from something like this. I feel like the head really is down to it's last tweeks.
Don't think it's down to it's last tweaks, if I'm understanding what you think last tweaks looks like. You still have room for things like surface noise, pores, wrinkles, etc. but you're not there yet. Let's get the forms of the face squared away before even committing to retopology.
By the way, I have to thank you for spending so much time every day helping me make my work better. I know you probably have more things than "babysit" me on my art, so I appreciate you taking the time to give me this kind of advice.
Face needs to be proportionally longer. There's no double eyelids. It still looks like you haven't made dramatic attempts to get it to look more like the reference.
I spent most of the day on it yesterday. I even lined up the proportions on the profile. And I got rid of the Adam's Apple, brought the temple out and defined the mastoid more. I thought you said she does have double eye-lids. Does that mean that the top eyelid isn't obvious like how I have it?
Remeasure how many eyes long Lucy's face is. Compare it to how many eyes high yours is.
Where' you've placed the eyebrow arc bend is too centrally located compared to the photos. It needs to be offset closer to the outer sides of the face.
The nose big forms are not matching Lucy's You still have that awkward pinch at the tip.
The nose silhouette still doesn't match Lucy's profile at the Anterior Naris location.
The brow area as it relates to the eyes needs to be formed a little more accurately, unless that's the lighting.
Oof, okay so I think my mistake about the double eyelids is that "the way you made the double eyelids is NOT how the double eyelids are." Not what I originally said. That was a second brain fart on my end.
This is what I mean by double eyelid.
The top is no double eyelid.
The bottom is with double eyelids.
It's important to note this is why a lot of East Asians seem to have small eyes, because they tend to lack double eyelids.
Also, when you're making proportional changes, I've found it immensely easier to OVER lengthen, or to OVER scale elements. It's much easier to pull back in art than to inch closer towards the ideal. With going overboard, you definitely know you've gone passed what was supposed to be instead of having not reached it yet.
Yesterday I lined up the model to the profile image, but not the front image. So I went back in and aligned it more with the face on transparency. I think she's starting to look dead on from the front. I also went back to the profile and cleaned anything that got shifted while working on the front. Remember though, Etta doesn't have to be an exact replica of Lucy Lui, Lucy Lui is just the reference.
East Asians don't have much of a brow relative to other phenotypes, but you're ignoring adding mass to the brow of your head.
Really observe the valleys, curvature, and masses of the brow in the image below. Cross reference it against Lucy's face.
To be honest, I think it's better for you to really try to nail an actual reference instead of doing "Something like." Right now, I don't think you're seeing enough to make a believeable face from scratch, so just at this moment in time, it will service you better to emulate an existing head already so you can actually see all these components in concert. I am critiquing under that assumption
Fix the brow. It needs to exist and have mass.
The flesh that surrounds the eyeballs look more like cuts into a skin and not speherical protrusions from the skin. Use slash, dam standard, trim dynamic, etc, to get that mass spherically popping out.
Again, The bottom of the nose needs to be more upturned to match the profile.
The way your jowl is shaped or shaded, that's not how they travel across the face. Notice the wedge shape that slants in from the ear to the corner of the lips.
I'll make those fixes to the eyes and the jaw plane next. In the mean time here is yesterday's work done on the suit. The leg plates and the knee guards are now separate parts. I also went into those indented designs on the side and made them a little more straight. Did you also suggest making the Shoulder pads separate pieces?
Her whole body looks like she's going to tip over still in her neutral post. Move her upper torso back. Reference figure models in neutral poses and see the gesture lines their body makes. Think about how it feels weighted right now, a lot of your character's mass is too forward.
Face still needs work. Specific include your lips not conforming to the big shapes lips make. Hopefully this reference helps.
Your philtrum is WAY too deep. CHeck your reference again and check your own philtrum, study how it connects into the bottom of the nose.
The front bulb of the nose is still pinching at the corners. You're not getting the spherical forms or planes of the nose.
The shape of her chin is off. Reference the ASaro head to see how the shape works out in that area. The bottom slants in way too soon.
Once again, double check and match the Lucy Liu reference. I have a feeling a lot of your face issues can be resolved by just emulating the shapes found on her face.
Proportions feel right on the face, I'd double check though. Measure, overlay the iamge on top of yours, etc.
Corners of the mouth don't cut into the face like that. There's a curvature that you're missing that I circled earlier.
Resculpt her double eyelids. That's now where her double eyelid is on her eyes.
I'm posting this again because I'm seeing a lot of the same issues. There's a couple big things you hit like proportionally stretching the face out, etc., but a lot of tiny issues still that I don't know if you tackled yet:
You made good progress, but it needs more polish before completion.
If it helps, write a checklist of fixes you need to make and just knock each line out as you go down. It'll help quantify progress.
I did some tweeking yesterday. I went back to the head and I flattened down the corners of the nose, reshaped the curvature of the chin and made the philtrum more shallow. I noticed that Lucy Liu's philtrum is actually very shallow. I even double checked the proportions on the head, so I think that's pretty accurate. The only problem was that the proportions in the profile pic were a little different from those of the front pic.
The only two things I seem to be having trouble with are the double eyelids and the corners of the mouth. I seem to be having trouble figuring out how they cut into the face.
I think I finally made her double eyelids look like Lucy's. I've noticed that Lucy's upper eyelids are very scarcely seen though.
I also backed up her upper torso so that she doesn't look like she's going to fall on her face.
I know it's been a while but here is some work done on Etta. I assumed her face sculpt was overall right as rain, so I moved on to some texturing work. Let me know what else I can do to improve this kind of work:
Replies
And I'll go back in and clean up the suit too.
Put an overlay over the head to see how close you're getting. That will help you.
Where' you've placed the eyebrow arc bend is too centrally located compared to the photos. It needs to be offset closer to the outer sides of the face.
The nose big forms are not matching Lucy's You still have that awkward pinch at the tip.
The nose silhouette still doesn't match Lucy's profile at the Anterior Naris location.
The brow area as it relates to the eyes needs to be formed a little more accurately, unless that's the lighting.
Oof, okay so I think my mistake about the double eyelids is that "the way you made the double eyelids is NOT how the double eyelids are." Not what I originally said. That was a second brain fart on my end.
This is what I mean by double eyelid.
The top is no double eyelid.
The bottom is with double eyelids.
It's important to note this is why a lot of East Asians seem to have small eyes, because they tend to lack double eyelids.
Also, when you're making proportional changes, I've found it immensely easier to OVER lengthen, or to OVER scale elements. It's much easier to pull back in art than to inch closer towards the ideal. With going overboard, you definitely know you've gone passed what was supposed to be instead of having not reached it yet.
Okay, I thought that's what you meant by double eyelids. I guess Lucy Liu has really small double eyelids.
East Asians don't have much of a brow relative to other phenotypes, but you're ignoring adding mass to the brow of your head.
Really observe the valleys, curvature, and masses of the brow in the image below. Cross reference it against Lucy's face.
To be honest, I think it's better for you to really try to nail an actual reference instead of doing "Something like." Right now, I don't think you're seeing enough to make a believeable face from scratch, so just at this moment in time, it will service you better to emulate an existing head already so you can actually see all these components in concert. I am critiquing under that assumption
Fix the brow. It needs to exist and have mass.
The flesh that surrounds the eyeballs look more like cuts into a skin and not speherical protrusions from the skin. Use slash, dam standard, trim dynamic, etc, to get that mass spherically popping out.
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Again, The bottom of the nose needs to be more upturned to match the profile.
The way your jowl is shaped or shaded, that's not how they travel across the face. Notice the wedge shape that slants in from the ear to the corner of the lips.
Here are some head close-ups:
Face still needs work. Specific include your lips not conforming to the big shapes lips make. Hopefully this reference helps.
Your philtrum is WAY too deep. CHeck your reference again and check your own philtrum, study how it connects into the bottom of the nose.
The front bulb of the nose is still pinching at the corners. You're not getting the spherical forms or planes of the nose.
The shape of her chin is off. Reference the ASaro head to see how the shape works out in that area. The bottom slants in way too soon.
Once again, double check and match the Lucy Liu reference. I have a feeling a lot of your face issues can be resolved by just emulating the shapes found on her face.
Proportions feel right on the face, I'd double check though. Measure, overlay the iamge on top of yours, etc.
Corners of the mouth don't cut into the face like that. There's a curvature that you're missing that I circled earlier.
Resculpt her double eyelids. That's now where her double eyelid is on her eyes.
I'm posting this again because I'm seeing a lot of the same issues. There's a couple big things you hit like proportionally stretching the face out, etc., but a lot of tiny issues still that I don't know if you tackled yet:
You made good progress, but it needs more polish before completion.
If it helps, write a checklist of fixes you need to make and just knock each line out as you go down. It'll help quantify progress.
Thanks man.
The only two things I seem to be having trouble with are the double eyelids and the corners of the mouth. I seem to be having trouble figuring out how they cut into the face.
I think I finally made her double eyelids look like Lucy's. I've noticed that Lucy's upper eyelids are very scarcely seen though.
I also backed up her upper torso so that she doesn't look like she's going to fall on her face.