Head Sculpting Troubles

jgarland

I've been working on this since earlier today, and I'm starting to get discouraged. All my head sculpts are turning out like shit on a shingle, so I figured I'd look for some help here.

Is there anything wrong with his proportions or anatomy? Too lumpy? Have any tips or advice?

Any help is much appreciated. Thanks guys.

snake85027

do you have a ref pic that your going off off?

Japhir

I think his eyes are too much apart, they should have the distance of one eye width between them. the mouth also looks very wide, but i think there are actually people with mouthes like that. It also looks as though you didn't give his eye soccets enaugh space.. the cheek already starts right under the eye if you get what i'm saying.
I don't think its that bad at all! just keep working on it!
keep it up!

Joao Sapiro

id also stay avoiding sculpting in more advanced polygon wise levels since if you use fewer geometry to define the shapes youll get better results ill do a paintover later.

jgarland

Snake: I don't really have a concept. I did look at a bit of reference for anatomy purposes, though. Any stylizing was thought up in my own head.

Japhir: I'll change the eyes when I get home, and look for some more reference. Thanks for the encouragement.

Johny: Stepping down a few subdivisions would definitely be a good idea. Defining the bigger forms will probably be a lot easier, now that I think about it. A paintover would be awesome.

As an aside, I've been having troubles with Mudbox. They're not new, but I've usually just worked around them. When I save a .mud file, it isn't openable in Mudbox. I can work around it by placing in the meshes folder in the Mudbox directory and using the create option, but it's far from ideal. Does anyone have any idea as to how to fix it?

Thanks for all the help, guys. It's greatly appreciated.

Jaco

The eyes are your biggest problem at the moment imo. You've got the corners of the eye right, but the overall shape looks like a rectangle, and it's vertically too squished. (Compare the eye's of Johny's avatar to your model's eyes) Move the lower lid down a bit. The eyes also look weird because that pouch below the lower lid is missing, look at some refs and you'll see what I mean.
The tip of the nose also looks too thin.
Were you going for a Clint Eastwood look?

jgarland

I didn't really have a "look." I knew I wanted him to be a bit rough around the edges, and somewhat gaunt, so I guess you could say it's a bit like Clint Eastwood.

I just arrived home, so I'm about to dig in and start fixing things. Thanks again for your help.

Ged

I found that having a reference pic was the most important thing for me.

3D sculpting isnt easy, keep at it. Your sculpt definitely looks better than my early ones!

heres some of my first sculpts :P http://ic3.deviantart.com/fs13/f/2007/023/6/2/Mudbox_Head_Study_by_SirCula.jpg

jgarland

I suppose this is what having no reference gets you.



I can't tell if it's better or worse. It looks a lot different, though. I decided to take it in a different direction, and I've been listening to your advice. I've made the eyes slightly more rounded, filled out the face a bit, and started working at lower levels.

I still think I could define the muscles and whatnot more, but it's 3:15 in the morning, so I'll keep plugging away at it tomorrow. Tell me what you think.

Psyk0

The structure is there, you just need to adjust the shapes.

The nasolabial fold should loop all the way to the top of the nostril, get a mirror and push your nostril upwards you'll see what i mean (with your face muscles not your hand! :P).

The eyebrow region looks too sharp and flat. The crease under his lower lip looks very un-natural, i would make it wider and softer. Having references will help a lot, it's also a good idea to check features of the skull so you know where to place/shape the landmark areas.

jgarland

I've worked on it a bit more. I think it's getting better, and I'm becoming quite pleased. Instead of just having large forms and small forms, I've tried to add some detail in-between.

I think it's just about time to subdivide again and add more high-frequency details. I've been trying to define as much as I possibly can at low levels, and it seems to be working out.

Let me know what you think.

Psyk0

Getting there.

Eye shape needs refining, the cheek bones should be bigger, to have a crease like you did, the character would have to be very thin and the crease would be round (following the bone) instead of being a straight line.

This should help:

jgarland

Thanks for all the help, everyone.

I'm starting to get really bored with this sculpt. When it gets to that point, I think it's best to just move on and work on something else. I kind of slacked off as far as the details go, and I'm sure there's more anatomy issues, but it's as done as it's ever going to get.

Here's the finished product: