[WIP] Likeness Sculpt (Dorian Electra) - Critique Needed

StykaSmith

I've slowly been getting back into character art and need to work on my anatomy more, so I decided to try and attempt a likeness sculpt. I'm fairly early on and still trying to refine the forms, but am having trouble figuring out what exactly needs to be tweaked. I'm at a point where any change I make just ends up looking wrong and I'm not sure what to do to fix it. Would appreciate any insight and help.

These are the main references I have been using

Ahsan55

-Eyes are too big and I believe it is what is making it hard for you to make any progress.
-One guideline for spacing the eyes is that the head should be able to fit approximately five eyeballs across its widest part (parietal ridge ish area just google widest part of the head or head top view) and your eyes should have a separation of approximately 1 eyeball.
-Your head lacks the proper curvature, if you view it from the top it should roughly look oval like an egg (Oviod?).
-Ears are a bit too high and too big.
-You've started sculpting at a high subdivision level, making it challenging to make significant changes. Begin with a lower subdivision level to establish the overall form and proportions before moving up to higher levels for fine details.
-The planes or forms of the lips are not right and the edges are weird. See this: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/v2Vgy6
-The corners of the mouth should align approximately with the midpoint between the eyes.
-The sides of the lower lip are supposed to be a bit smoothed out.

If you can afford it get the anatomy for sculptors book if not they have some pages on their Artstation profile (I linked a post from it above).
Speed char and speed char live has videos on fixing anatomy.

Your references images were taken are at different focal lengths causing some distortion of the facial features be mindful of this effect.
This is a personal preference but i find that having the cornea bit in the eyeball helps a bit.
Also if you are facing issues with sculpting certain details having the right topology underneath can be quite helpful.

(Google human head proportions for similar images)

Best of luck with your sculpt, hope this was helpful.

StykaSmith

Ahsan55 said:

-Eyes are too big and I believe it is what is making it hard for you to make any progress.
-One guideline for spacing the eyes is that the head should be able to fit approximately five eyeballs across its widest part (parietal ridge ish area just google widest part of the head or head top view) and your eyes should have a separation of approximately 1 eyeball.
-Your head lacks the proper curvature, if you view it from the top it should roughly look oval like an egg (Oviod?).
-Ears are a bit too high and too big.
-You've started sculpting at a high subdivision level, making it challenging to make significant changes. Begin with a lower subdivision level to establish the overall form and proportions before moving up to higher levels for fine details.
-The planes or forms of the lips are not right and the edges are weird. See this: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/v2Vgy6
-The corners of the mouth should align approximately with the midpoint between the eyes.
-The sides of the lower lip are supposed to be a bit smoothed out.

If you can afford it get the anatomy for sculptors book if not they have some pages on their Artstation profile (I linked a post from it above).
Speed char and speed char live has videos on fixing anatomy.

Your references images were taken are at different focal lengths causing some distortion of the facial features be mindful of this effect.
This is a personal preference but i find that having the cornea bit in the eyeball helps a bit.
Also if you are facing issues with sculpting certain details having the right topology underneath can be quite helpful.

(Google human head proportions for similar images)

Best of luck with your sculpt, hope this was helpful.

thanks so much! Fixing the eyes and ears proportion helped a ton. I didnt even consider focal length when gathering references, ill be sure to keep that in mind moving forward, but just looking at examples makes it clear how drastically different things can be. I feel like i lost the likeness a bit, but im a lot happier with the overall look.

Fabi_G

Hi! Before doing a likeness sculpt, I believe it could help to make quicker, more low res exercises first, to practice proportions and features. Aside from observing 2d images, you can also drop 3d references into your scene for comparison.

kanga

Great advice from Fabi_G. I reckon you would be better served by doing 3d sketches of whole figures, both male and female. Lots of them

You can use Daz 3D as referance on a screen next to your work, as reference. Its free to use.