Cyberpunk Elf Bust (WIP), Looking for CC

Teckdragon

Hello folks, I'm new to Polycount and I'm hoping that you might lend me some of your expertise. I've trying to improve my skills with ZBrush by sculpting a female cyberpunk elf character bust, which I intend to 3D print. I don't have much experience in making female characters, and I'm not sure what about the anatomy of my sculpt I might change to make it more feminine. This is also my first time messing with IMM hair brushes, and I'd appreciate any tips you may have for creating better hair geometry.  I'd appreciate any comments you have. Thanks for taking a look.

Brian "Panda" Choi

You need to bring down the resolution of the face and focus on nailing the planes of the face first, like using the Asaro Planar head.  Right now your  primary forms feel incredibly lumpy (i.e. the major planes of the face and their transitions.)

What references are you using for the head?  What's your concept art?  Or mood board at least?

Teckdragon

Thanks for the feedback Brian.
 I see what your talking about with the lumpiness.  I've got a few references pulled up in a PureRef doc for help with the hairstyle and elf features. I'm not working off of any one concept, which may be contributing to my muddy anatomy. If the issues are in finding the planes should I try using something like Trim Dynamic to find the planes, and then rebuild the rest of face? I'll attach my ref board below.

HarlequinWerewolf

Your moodboard is cool, but you need some solid anatomy references in there to help get the general face shape in. Once you have the planes of the face, you can push and pull them (within reason) to make her more unique/stylised. 

Teckdragon

Thank you for the suggestions and feedback. I spent  a few hours trying to create a female head from a sphere, and here is what I came up with:

I tried to address the previously mentioned lumpiness of it all, and while I think that this attempt is smoother, I feel that I'm missing some details/definition, but I'm not sure what exactly.  I think I may have make the eyes too large, or maybe just the irises, or both?

I'd appreciate any feedback you have to offer. Thanks for taking a look.

kanga

This is from another thread. So not all I wrote applies here.

Map out the shape at its lowest level until you have a good general form. Here is one in zB using zspheres. To get between the 2nd and 3rd step I first sculpted (mostly using the move brush) the base mesh in zB to a general form and then GoZeded the model to Blender and  just poly edited it to add and delete verts and loops where I needed to, then GoZeded it back to zB for sub division and sculpting. In Blender I deleted half the figure, lined up all the centre verts and used a symmetry modifier to get a symmetrical base mesh. Zspheres are generally symmetrical but not perfectly. People are not symmetrical, but in the first stages of modelling them its way easier to have a symmetrical mesh and add asymmetry at a later stage.

You can get a good end result by using image grids in zB or image planes in another 3d app. To get reference shots you can use a free program like Daz3D. Here is a pic of the viewport with the textures disabled for easier form representation. The Genesis models are based on 3D scans.

You can take orthographic screen shots to use on your reference planes.

Once you have front, left, right, back, top and bottom you can set up your planes. This is in zB but you can do the same in which ever 3D app yu wish.

Using these views will only get you so far. Another great aid is to download a free skeleton from the web and place it under your model. This helps you to get an all round reference instead of just the 90 degree views from the planes.

Cheerio and hope this helps.