One head study at a time!

RachidJ

Trying to build my momentum, the plan is to make a head study a day, eventually upgrade to a bust and so on. I will be working on my new character on top of that as well. Feedback is welcomed.

RachidJ

Here is my 1st study! (Christopher Lloyd), granted is not as close to his likeness as I would like it to be, but it will get there eventually  

RachidJ

Had a hard time with this face, behind on the faces atm, but I will be trying to make it up over the weekend to catch up! (Ted Cassidy)

RachidJ

Alright week 2, missed a bunch of days for week 1, but I'll try my best that it doesn't repeat on this week here are Monday's and Tuesday's head studies 

Olingova

That last one really came out far, loved it!

RachidJ

@Olingova thank you so much for the words of encouragement, I will continue to push myself  to get better

RachidJ

Something came up during the weekend so I was not able to take my head studies to the texturing stage, but I was not about to go to sleep knowing that I've only done 3 head studies for the week so pushed myself and lost some sleep to get this one out from my imagination to see what I was capable off without reference, granted a lot of mistakes still but I'll continue to fail forward to gain success! constructive crits are welcomed! Also, the 1st image is of a Jack Nicholson study I did earlier in the week 

carvuliero

Is it just me or you are using same base mesh and just moving things around which cause them to look to a like .Why don't you start from scratch or at least use blank head base .It take only 5 min to block a basic head and it a good way to warm up before study + you will have a chance to be more specific with original head shape ++ if you want to get faster you wont find better exercise

RachidJ

@carvuliero I am starting from scratch every single sculpt, I do not use a base mesh I strat from a sphere, the reason why they may look the same is that I follow the same steps and brushes to create the shapes that make up the head. The goal is that as I get more practice I will be able to identify the stuff that I am doing wrong and update them. Thank you for the suggestion and taking your time to show me your exercise, I will try it out on my next sculpt  

RachidJ

Today's exercises, still having problems with the eyes and mouth area, but I am not letting me that stop me and I will continue to improve and update my process to accommodate for a better result. (Arnold Schwarzenegger) like always any tips that can help me will be greatly appreciated! 

carvuliero

How long did you spend on one of those heads ?

Whats your goal here ?

Why don't you post reference too [I am pretty sure Arnold have rectangle face and you have giving him a round one ]

Ok my guess here is that you sculpt 90% what you know and only 5-10 what reference is that's why they end up looking similar so you either have to know more or have to interact more with the reference material

RachidJ

@carvuliero Thank you for asking .I am spending 4 hours on each sculpt. My goals is to develop a solid process to sculpt a head, have a clear understanding of the landmarks and structure of the head, be able to block in primary and secondary detail in a timely manner, achieve a likeness that does not go into the uncanny valley, apply what I've learned and developed my personal way of stylization, and finally expand this process to the body. I do not post my reference because I'm just taking a screenshot of the face on ZBrush posting it right away without taking time to create a proper presentation. Arnold may have a rectangle face and I may be giving him a circular, this could be due to me getting lost in other structural parts of the face giving it such a look, once I find out where I'm going wrong you will see the difference in my sculpts, this might take a bit since I'll have to factor in the time to find the correct tutorials or resources and the time to put into practice these what I have learned to internalise it and incorporate it into my workflow. Your guess of me sculpting 90% of what I know could be right because I don't know much and thus the faces are not coming out as they should. I am paying attention to the reference, I am not sculpting by memory is just I don't have sufficient knowledge to translate what I'm seeing in a 2D medium into a 3D. I will continue to do these exercises and incrementally improve thru obvious failures and small wins here and there. 

carvuliero

Do you use zbrush angle of view by default 50 ? If you do I suggest lower it down to 30 or turn off prospective till you have something that look like a human [doing initial proportion measurements with prospective on wont lead to anything good]

Also I suggest to take 10-20 min and analyze you reference before starting to sculpt them [comparing reference to something like Loomis/Bammes ideal head proportion ] What I mean by that is represent in second image on the left is basic frontal shape of his face/head and on the right is few helpful proportion/relations like height to width [longest lines in most ppl is 3:2 Arnold fit that general proportion] brow to chin middle is bottom of the nose and so on ,enough to be able to block a basic likeness of him and map the feature in their correct places.Now you just have to do the same for side view [I suggest you use side view as your main its more reliable for measurements ]

Also a general note you might want tot make yourself a study plan break the head and neck in to chunks and start learning that one by one

A

it

RachidJ

@carvuliero thank you so much for the information, I've been missing in action for a few days because of some problems, but I hope by tomorrow I can pick up where I left off and apply your advice to my sculpts. Again thank you so much for investing your time with such an in-depth explanation. I hope I can pay it right back with future results of my work!

RachidJ

Taking a different approach to the studies now, instead of doing a head a day I will spend more time on each, will be doing a 2h sculpt of the head to warm up and then reset and start over again. When I run into any problems I will start over from scratch, take make a few studies of that area and apply, then rinse and repeat. That way I get more mileage in one sitting. Still, early stages but here is what I got.