Any advice on adjusting her face more towards the concept, please! WIP

F3NR1R

Now, this is my first ever personal project that I'm intending to finish.

I've struggled a lot with the face, remaking it countless times. (I mean, obviously can't expect to be good doing my first face)
I think I've achieved somewhat a tolerable result, even though some features still put me off. And from looking at it so much, I can't even tell what's wrong at this point. So I need your help in your feedback, guys!

I was going for the asian cute/sad/empty eyes kinda look to be according to the concept. And I like the way it looks in Zbrush. However, when I take it to SP or Marmoset, she looks so different and not the way I wish she did. Any help is really appreciated! (off to making additional hair layers while awaiting feedback
Here when things get kinda weird. I've considered the reason to be FOV settings or just the material and lighting set up. But I'm sure there's more I could fix.

JohannesAg

well for one thing you should have your eye texture applied in zbrush so you can see what you´re doing in there. Also she looks a bit cross eyed so I would rotate the eyes slightly outward and see how that looks

carvuliero

I have a few suggestions:

- easiest one is find mid line in side view and place front of the ear on it this will fix long jaw thing then can adjust the neck accordingly

- you havent orient your model correctly to the reference it need to be rotated to the left a bit more

- suggest to use either skull or image of a girl to get correct relation between brow cheeks and chin to get the asian look then adjust to what ever stylization you want using the reference

-longer neck wont hurt

-there are bunch of free manga drawing books if you need more references

birb

You're on the right path here. Be extra careful with the subtle curves of her face and the relationship between her facial features to achieve a stronger likeness.

The very first thing you can try is to adjust the fov/focal length of the camera when doing direct comparisons to the original artwork. You seem to be using a wider angle than it and this will definitively make it harder to compare.

The major features needing adjustment are the lips and the eyes, followed by hairstyling.

1

Great part of her looks hinges on the proportion of her lips to her face. Hers are small and delicate, while you did a thicker and noticeable mouth with the lower lip protruding much farther than in the artwork. This change makes your sculpt deviate a lot from the original. Reduce the size and depth of the lower lip, fix the cupid's bow so it's no longer pinched and you'll get an immediate boost in likeness.

You can also try to make the mouth depth falloff a bit rounder, as if it were sculpted from a sphere squashed against her jaw. This should give you a 3/4 profile truer to the original.

Her eyes are more closed in the artwork, also having fuller lower eyelids. Make the transition to the cheeks gentler there and play with soft plane changes in the transition from the upper ones to the glabella instead. A diamond-like glabella works very well for softer nose bridges like this, being in line with how epiphanic folds look in real life. Pay attention to the eyelid fold shape in the artwork (it's not straight), and be careful with the eyelashes. Her upper eyelashes are longer, her lower are shorter and softer. You probably can get away with omitting a big part of the lower eyelashes by painting a subtle shadow on lower eyelids to suggest their presence. Experiment with ways of softening the lashes themselves as well, like adding a plane with a simple transparent gradient so they acquire a fuller and well defined silhouette while looking more delicate.

2

She's got lower cheekbones and a slightly different facial volume you're having trouble depicting. Her nose is also a bit smaller and rounder, with lower wings. This should work well with a subtler nose bridge; take a look at dolls' and Pixar's noses for references. Her eyebrows are fuller and slightly curved, framing her gaze. Good eyebrows bring an artwork to another level, don't skimp on them.

3-4

When doing the hair pay special attention to the hairline shape because it'll change how the facial structure is perceived. If using it to check likeness style it as in the original. The way the strands fall, where they were placed is no accident. This changes the profile look and also the head shape. The bangs layering alone makes her head look way taller than in the sculpt.

In this case in special her hair has great weight in the way she looks. To reproduce it you need either a solid mesh hair or more layers with a different strand shape falloff. The current strands are way too thin close to the tips, when it'll be easier to get an opaquer true-to-original look if you use a more abrupt falloff. Fill in the bangs and let dedicated hair cards with sparser hair strands take upon the flyaway role, trying to do both in the same cards won't work.

5

This one is absolutely optional: You can move her nose and make her eyes a tiny bit larger to better match the facial proportions of the original artwork. This will make she look younger though.

I hope this helps!

F3NR1R

birb said:

You're on the right path here. Be extra careful with the subtle curves of her face and the relationship between her facial features to achieve a stronger likeness.

The very first thing you can try is to adjust the fov/focal length of the camera when doing direct comparisons to the original artwork. You seem to be using a wider angle than it and this will definitively make it harder to compare.

The major features needing adjustment are the lips and the eyes, followed by hairstyling.

1

Great part of her looks hinges on the proportion of her lips to her face. Hers are small and delicate, while you did a thicker and noticeable mouth with the lower lip protruding much farther than in the artwork. This change makes your sculpt deviate a lot from the original. Reduce the size and depth of the lower lip, fix the cupid's bow so it's no longer pinched and you'll get an immediate boost in likeness.

You can also try to make the mouth depth falloff a bit rounder, as if it were sculpted from a sphere squashed against her jaw. This should give you a 3/4 profile truer to the original.

Her eyes are more closed in the artwork, also having fuller lower eyelids. Make the transition to the cheeks gentler there and play with soft plane changes in the transition from the upper ones to the glabella instead. A diamond-like glabella works very well for softer nose bridges like this, being in line with how epiphanic folds look in real life. Pay attention to the eyelid fold shape in the artwork (it's not straight), and be careful with the eyelashes. Her upper eyelashes are longer, her lower are shorter and softer. You probably can get away with omitting a big part of the lower eyelashes by painting a subtle shadow on lower eyelids to suggest their presence. Experiment with ways of softening the lashes themselves as well, like adding a plane with a simple transparent gradient so they acquire a fuller and well defined silhouette while looking more delicate.

2

She's got lower cheekbones and a slightly different facial volume you're having trouble depicting. Her nose is also a bit smaller and rounder, with lower wings. This should work well with a subtler nose bridge; take a look at dolls' and Pixar's noses for references. Her eyebrows are fuller and slightly curved, framing her gaze. Good eyebrows bring an artwork to another level, don't skimp on them.

3-4

When doing the hair pay special attention to the hairline shape because it'll change how the facial structure is perceived. If using it to check likeness style it as in the original. The way the strands fall, where they were placed is no accident. This changes the profile look and also the head shape. The bangs layering alone makes her head look way taller than in the sculpt.

In this case in special her hair has great weight in the way she looks. To reproduce it you need either a solid mesh hair or more layers with a different strand shape falloff. The current strands are way too thin close to the tips, when it'll be easier to get an opaquer true-to-original look if you use a more abrupt falloff. Fill in the bangs and let dedicated hair cards with sparser hair strands take upon the flyaway role, trying to do both in the same cards won't work.

5

This one is absolutely optional: You can move her nose and make her eyes a tiny bit larger to better match the facial proportions of the original artwork. This will make she look younger though.

I hope this helps!

Your reply is crazy, Thank you so much! I've been always reluctant to ask for help and to just put my ugly wips out there.
I followed your advice, but only had enough time to work on the face. I'm liking the changes so far. It looks so much better in Zbrush, but when I put it in Marmoset scene, the ugly comes out.    I'll try more tomorrow.

I think Marmoset shows that I made her cheeks a little too chubby without proper transition. And upper eyelids still need a little touch.

DavidCruz

Did what i thought you should do, should be self explanatory hopefully.
i tried.

What i did overlayed the image over your results, you do not have the angle right but i did what i could with what was supplied.  You have to made slight changes to the eye area, ears, nose, cheeks, brows, nose ridge, lips, the clothing doesn't match also just idk if you are up to that.  Seems like you are jumping ahead of yourself if you are already in marmoset.  If you are looking to 1:1 you have to make simple shapes like the hair clumps i made then match those before making the hair textures at all.  Kind of has a clump feel to it, idk how to describe it a deflated boxers punching bag, you can look that up i think it works (probably some technical name for it but atm i can't be azsd.)

Good luck looking good
what i mean about the hair clumps:

F3NR1R

Thanks to you guys, I was able to achieve the result I'm satisfied with. (Hair still needs work)
I think it does look way better than what I came here with. Thanks everyone!