[Wip] 30 days, 30 heads Feedback please?
polycounter lvl 2
Hey! This is my first post on here so I hope it doesn't break any of the rules. My name is Blue and I like making stylized characters! I've got one year of 3d under my belt and just graduated, so I want to step up my game so I can get a nice and chill job. 😊
I was invited to make a Polycount account by a professional character artist, to improve my sculpting abilities by sculpting one head per day for a month. So I figured i would start now, and ask for general feedback! (+record my process to see how much I'll have improved in a month haha) (or more because I have some real life stuff coming but shhhh I'll do my best)
For the first day, I figured I'd let myself sculpt the head that I wanted, and just go with the flow. I decided to do this one using only my mouse and not my tablet. One additional thing, I decided not to use references! A very bad choice I know, but I wanted to see where exactly I was when it comes to anatomy and stuff. This won't be the case for following sculpts, I promise lol.
With that in mind, I booted up Zbrush at 1am and started sculpting from a sphere.
After an hour and fifteen minutes, I felt like continuing on would be a bit useless so this is what I had. I aimed for a more feminine face as I progressed.
The ears weren't this bad before, they got mangled at some point and I didn't notice until much later. Honestly I felt a bit too tired to do them again.
In my opinion, the things I need to work on are the following:
-Head shape/skull feels wonky
-Face planes are weak
-The nose feels too amateur
-The ears are plain old bad.
more subjective:
-Not clear enough that this is a feminine face.
-I don't like the cheeks
-The face feels a little bit too caved in when it comes to the eyes, almost as it it were tilted.
-add a neck next time?
now I don't wanna just dunk on my art, I'd also like to say a positive thing! I absolutely loved the way the lower face came out on this, especially the mouth/lips and connection from the mouth to the nose. (smile wrinkle, small muscle under the lip corners).
It could have been framed better had the nose and the chin/jaw been more professional, but that will have to be for my next sculpt.
Let me know if you agree or think of anything else I could work on! Please be harsh about it lol, there's no need to baby my feelings, I'm here to learn and you can be as brutally honest as you want 😉
(also if you have any advice about Polycount! this seems like a nice place and I'd love to make friends c: )
Have a nice night everyone! I'll head out for now ⭐
I was invited to make a Polycount account by a professional character artist, to improve my sculpting abilities by sculpting one head per day for a month. So I figured i would start now, and ask for general feedback! (+record my process to see how much I'll have improved in a month haha) (or more because I have some real life stuff coming but shhhh I'll do my best)
For the first day, I figured I'd let myself sculpt the head that I wanted, and just go with the flow. I decided to do this one using only my mouse and not my tablet. One additional thing, I decided not to use references! A very bad choice I know, but I wanted to see where exactly I was when it comes to anatomy and stuff. This won't be the case for following sculpts, I promise lol.
With that in mind, I booted up Zbrush at 1am and started sculpting from a sphere.
After an hour and fifteen minutes, I felt like continuing on would be a bit useless so this is what I had. I aimed for a more feminine face as I progressed.
The ears weren't this bad before, they got mangled at some point and I didn't notice until much later. Honestly I felt a bit too tired to do them again.
In my opinion, the things I need to work on are the following:
-Head shape/skull feels wonky
-Face planes are weak
-The nose feels too amateur
-The ears are plain old bad.
more subjective:
-Not clear enough that this is a feminine face.
-I don't like the cheeks
-The face feels a little bit too caved in when it comes to the eyes, almost as it it were tilted.
-add a neck next time?
now I don't wanna just dunk on my art, I'd also like to say a positive thing! I absolutely loved the way the lower face came out on this, especially the mouth/lips and connection from the mouth to the nose. (smile wrinkle, small muscle under the lip corners).
It could have been framed better had the nose and the chin/jaw been more professional, but that will have to be for my next sculpt.
Let me know if you agree or think of anything else I could work on! Please be harsh about it lol, there's no need to baby my feelings, I'm here to learn and you can be as brutally honest as you want 😉
(also if you have any advice about Polycount! this seems like a nice place and I'd love to make friends c: )
Have a nice night everyone! I'll head out for now ⭐
Replies
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Another day, another head!
After digging a bit, I realised that the rules for this challenge are already quite streamlined and I didn’t end up quite following them during day one lol. Because of that, I thought about it a bit and decided to give it my own spin.
First day would be what I did yesterday, blank canvas, no reference. Day two and onwards, I’m going to alternate between a real portrait study (like in the original challenge), and a stylised drawing/sculpt that I like (I’ll give full links to the original artists).
I think that this way, I’ll cover more things at once: both stylisation and anatomy! :] let me know if you think this is a good idea.
So for day two, I hopped on a thread of the 30 heads challenge and picked up a face that I liked, as to not scare myself too much since this is my first sculpt from reference. I landed on this beautiful image.
With the reference nice and prepped, I opened Zbrush at around 1:30 am and sculpted for perfectly one hour, and this is the result!
A bit about my process: I started this head differently than the previous one. Instead of just dragging a sphere around, I assembled multiple subtools which was fun! A sphere for the face plane, one for the back of the skull, and two cylinders for the neck and the start of the torso. After that, I merged them and started moving the resulting form around.
For this one sculpt, I tried focusing on the overall proportions, keeping things at a minimum resolution for as long as possible and only gradually increasing it when absolutely needed. (I work with the Dynamesh tool). I felt like the ears weren’t necessary for this sculpt since they were barely visible in the front view, and I wanted to dedicate more time to the main facial features. I definitely want to include some in my next sculpt though.
I also used the clay polish geometry tool on my last sculpt, which I didn’t do for this one. I think this is why it looks less refined, but it wouldn’t have fit for a more realistic style in my opinion.
Here’s my self-critique:
-The eye area doesn’t look great in ¾ view. I should have made a separate subtool for the eyes but completely forgot until I wrote this haha
-skull shape needs more work
-lack of ears
-the details aren’t on point, which is a really important of making anything look close to a reference. I’m noticing a few shapes, plane un-even-ness, and a few angles.
-likeliness could have been greatly improved by adding the piercings, and it would have been quick.
Something I liked about this sculpt is that the cupid’s bow of this person curves outwards! Once I rendered it to be this way, I really felt like the face was coming together. I’m also quite happy of how the nose turned out from the front and the side!
Let me know what you think! :] This post will also arrive late, since my original thread is under review currently. I’ll post this as a reply as soon as it gets back online. See you!
I looked around for stylised refs and couldn’t find much in my stash, but I stumbled upon this beautiful official concept for Jinx/Powder in Arcane, I thought it’d be the perfect candidate since this reference sheet is so pretty and nicely made.
This time around, I wanted the focal point of this sculpt to be that it’d be super clear that this was Powder. I wanted her to be very recognisable.
I also want to give the eyes more love than usual as I’ve been slacking off a bit!
I prepped the reference in clip studio paint, and started up Zbrush at around 01:50am. After an hour of work, I painfully had to stop working on this lol. Needless to say, I enjoyed it way more than expected.
Here’s the result with some light vertex paint!
I started this sculpt like last one, but assembled different shapes. (Two cylinders for the face shape, and a cone for the torso.) I blocked out the shape of the skull before making the resolution any higher. Then I applied the base proportions to the front of the face, then side, then ¾. There was a lot of back and forth between those views afterwards (maybe a bit lacking towards the end), and I found that the ¾ was the most useful in making the portrait feel accurate! Just like last time, I didn’t use the clay polish tool. I instead used the pinch tool, which I have a new appreciation for. It’s so useful! That alt pinch tool for the valleys is amazing. Something else to note is that I disabled the perspective for this sculpt. It made it easier to match the reference.
Now for the self-critique:
-The face is too tall, and the neck is too far back.
-Lower eyelid is too high
-eyebrows are too high
-The nose tip doesn’t feel accurate to the concept, and the sides could be more defined (in profile and ¾ view). The nose feels a bit too wide as well
-Side view lacks polish
-breaking symmetry feels like it could have been useful.
(later edit: I overlayed my sculpt on the reference and found that it matched really well in ¾ view but was quite too long in front view. Maybe a problem coming from the reference, but I really doubt it since this is really professional concept art. Idk, something to think about in the future I guess!)
But you know, I feel like if I gave myself more time to noodle around, I could get quite close to this concept! I’m really happy about it.
As for what I liked; I cannot stress this enough but I love her cheeks so so so much! I already liked them in the concept, but just sculpting them around made me so happy, she just looks so adorable! And while I feel like I didn’t capture them perfectly, I think something still works with what I did. Something else I’m happy with are the eyes, defining the lash lines was really useful in making them pop!
Let me know what you think and if what I said is accurate. :] would you tweak anything? My thread still isn’t online so this is my third day working in the dark, I can’t wait to hear what you all think.
I got some really nice feedback from the super kind artist Sanna Kempe, and we discussed things a bit. After that talk, I decided to start working way lower resolution and start adding hair to my sculpts. I was also advised to use a base mesh!
I will also start following the original head prompts, which will make this challenge be 60 heads for 60 days ;] It’ll be routine at that point! Today’s head will be this one.
I had some real life issues the past two days, between covid and my rsi giving me a visit, I decided to take care of myself a bit and skipped a day. I almost skipped this one too because of a massive headache but decided to do it anyway. At around 1:50am, I booted up Zbrush. I was done by 02:40, and this is the result!
Man, I feel like this made such a huge difference compared to the past days! I’m absolutely toast so not really able to comment on this extensively, but I’m really glad with this front view. I wish it matched more with the side and ¾ views though. I think I’m going to drop any second now, so see you tomorrow!
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/xYYAxR
With further ado, let’s do this! I’ll give myself some more time since I can’t really use a basemesh for this, I aimed at 2 hours max. at 10:50 pm, I opened Zbrush. In the end, I was able to use a basemesh so it only took me an hour :]
Here’s the result. Not much to say about this one, I wish the profile view was a bit better and that I made the eyes bigger, but otherwise I’m quite happy with it! Any feedback?
I hope life has been treating you all well lately, and have a nice night!
This was the ref for the day.
I started up at 03:35 am, and was done after around an hour.
Too tired to see what’s wrong lol, for right now I’d say I should work lower res next time! The likeliness is also getting closer in my opinion, but at first glance it’s still not perfect at all. The smile could have been re-worked, the look in the eyes too, and it somewhat looks like my sculpt is smiling while the reference isn’t.
Something I like is how asymmetrical this face was! I love how the eye on our right is higher than the other, it really gives this guy some character. I’m also not used to working on people/character with wider faces, so this was interesting!
See ya tomorrow :]
I was really tired today and my motivation machine broke a bit. I found some cool references of Miles Morales from the SpiderVerse movie and decided to go with that! I was a bit less methodical about the references today and just used this collage.
At 3:40 am I started sculpting, and was done by 04:30! I actually was quite satisfied after 30 minutes and didn't know what to do with my time haha. Here's the result!
Actually super glad of how this came out 😭front view could have been better but that second 3/4 view really made me happy!! I'll try look at it more tomorrow see what I can improve for next one. On this note, have a nice night!
I started up zbrush at 10:25 pm, and considered myself done at 11:10pm.
I'm pretty happy with how his eyes turned out, but I definitely neglected the nose and hair. I feel like with a little bit more time, it could have gotten a lot better but in the moment I really saw nothing wrong! Maybe I'll take little breaks during these things, just to recenter myself a bit more.
Have you seen this guy, his videos are full of lots of useful information.
Best of luck!
Took a little break yesterday as I had some real life stuff to do. But let's get into day nine! It's stylised day today, and I found this incredible reference by Vladimir Savelyev on Artstation the other day. It looks really intimidating and out of my comfort zone but I wanna try it out!
Once again, it looks like it'd be difficult to make this out of a basemesh so I'll give myself some more time :] I started up Zbrush at around 2am with a nice lemon tea! I was done at only.... 2:40 pm. Huh, I didn't expect that!
I was able to use the basemesh again!!!! man those things are indestructible. And weirdly, with the little amount I spent on this, I think it looks... really quite good? I may have made him snarl too much in profile view, and i have trouble understanding the bit at the side of the jaw, but I'm still quite happy!
Do you see anything wring with it? What do you think I should do with the twenty remaining minutes? I thought about refining the teeth and maybe, just maaaaybe going higher in resolution, but I saw a great artist say that (in reference to this challenge) "if you aren't frustrated with how low poly you're working, then you're doing it wrong" 😅
What do you think?
Well, with that I'll wish you a good night! I hope I can work on a woman tomorrow, it's been a while
Started up at around 10:25pm! at 11:20, i took a two minutes break before putting down the final touches, and being done at 11:25, meaning this took exactly one hour. Phew!
Here's the result
Now, while I did get the facial features super close in front view (I overlaid it after a bit and was really accurate! it made me really happy haha), I feel like the likeliness just didn't come through? Maybe it's the lack of lashes, I also think the mouth isn't super accurate to the reference (same with the eyes in 3/4 view, the spacing looks odd).
The hair also is waaaayyy off in 3/4 view lol, I didn't realise before I put together the comparison montage. Oh well!
In any case, I'm not super satisfied with this gal.
Taking a micro break before the end did help a lot though! it made me realise some obvious mistakes like the placement of the eyebrows in the side view. So I'll try and do this again if the future if I remember to!
This was also a test to see if I still needed to break down the references before starting to work and I feel like I don't really need it anymore, so I'll be going without them in the future except if something really weird comes up :]
On that note, I'll wish you all a good night! If you have any feedback or ressources for this challenge I'm all ears, I don't have any plan for the stylised day tomorrow ;w; (I'll also potentially be away, so sorry if day eleven has some delay!)
See ya
And thank you so much Sacboi, your comment means a lot! I'll try and keep updating this place about what I learn, especially if it benefits others. :]
I've had the luck to discuss with a professional artist about this challenge, and she brought my attention to a few mistakes I make that I should keep in mind for the future. In particular, I tend to make areas that are quite rounded (like the cheeks) be too flat! Usually I don't notice it because it looks fine in all the referenced views, but it's visible in the way the material is shaded. I also seem to have some trouble with angles. So I'd like to work on this next!
Today is day eleven, and it's stylised day! I don't have many references in stock, but I did find this beautiful sculpt on sketchfab by
With all of that, I launched Zbrush at 02:50AM, and finished at 03:50.
It feels like there's a boatload of things wrong with this, but I realllly need to catch some Z's. I'm sure some rest will also make me see the mistakes easier! In the mean time, I'll be off 🥱✨ Good night!
In any case, I spent a bit looking at the reference before jumping in at 9pm, and finishing at 10pm.
This one felt like a bit of a disaster, and I guess they can't all be winning. Spent a long long time being stuck on they eyes, the face shape feels wrong and so does the sculpt, I don't know if there's anything I think I did a good job on for this one.
I tried starting this with the 3/4 view and it was more trouble than it was worth. in the future, I'll keep on starting them from the front, or side.
Oh well, I'll try better next time! :] tell me if you have any feedback on this, and see you then ✨
Hey all, Quick update on this challenge!
I had a lot of real life stuff coming up, so I wasn't able to continue past day twelve. I'd still love to start this challence again someday or even start over, but in the mean time I'll focus on portfolio work and real life stuff :] Feel free to check my other threads or have a chat with me somewhere else! And if you have feedback on faces previously posted here, I'd love to hear it 💗💖
See you all later, you rock! ヾ(≧▽≦*)o
-Blue 💙🍄
Hey BlueChaos. If you by any chance have time, I would love for you to continue. I think you are on the way for an awesome AHA experience and Move up in level with sculpting! I truly believe so. I know sometimes life can take over. But maybe moving over to just doing pieces of the body instead? Noses, Eyes, Ears and mouth. Smaller pieces. that take less time?