Marlon Brando Bust
polycounter lvl 18
I decided to do a character bust so I could finally familiarize myself with creating proper normal maps.
I picked Brando because I think he's interesting, and I won't have to be bothered with concepting a cybernetic vampire hunter or whatnot. This is my main reference:
This is what I have thus far. It's about 1.5 million polygons, and if I subdivide any further my pc will explode.
This is my first time using mudbox and I'm really impressed with it so far. I'll probably redo the eyes in max, and the shoulders will be done separately. The hair will probably need some alpha planes to avoid helmet hair syndrome.
I picked Brando because I think he's interesting, and I won't have to be bothered with concepting a cybernetic vampire hunter or whatnot. This is my main reference:
This is what I have thus far. It's about 1.5 million polygons, and if I subdivide any further my pc will explode.
This is my first time using mudbox and I'm really impressed with it so far. I'll probably redo the eyes in max, and the shoulders will be done separately. The hair will probably need some alpha planes to avoid helmet hair syndrome.
Replies
The eyes are all wrong, you eliminated the layer of fat that is about the eye, look at the photo, do you see his upper eyelid?, you see a small bit of it right at the tear duct peaking out of it, granted he looks as though his head is slightly turned downward, however, Brando has a fairly heavy brown
Look at these other photos of him:
http://static.flickr.com/44/119015714_20cf3b04d6_o.jpg
http://cache.eb.com/eb/image?id=77089&rendTypeId=4
the layer of fat above his eye is almost a separate entity in its own, even when he was young it was like that.
I also think his head may be too narrow.
Like I said, you have a good foundation, and now you just need to tweak the forms and proportions, probably shouldn't have already started on those fine little details yet.
Oh, and you'll want to check out this page and study carefully those images.
Ruz - I'll try to address that.
fogmann - Thanks for the link, I was having trouble finding high-res refs. His forehead does cave in a bit between the brows, but I've made it less emphasized. What is it about the nose that needs attention? Maybe making the top of the bridge thinner, and the bottom flare out more?
Thanks for the input guys. I'll probably end up taking small liberties with the likeness, but as long as people are able to look at it and identify the actor, I'll be happy with it. Brando had a long career and went in/out of popularity, so I'm only trying to nail the 1960s look (his late 30s and 40s).
Smallish update. The eyes still need a bit of work since he doesn't have an upper eyelid now. Also found a youtube vid that I used for some refs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26UD4kFr1pc
Its an interview thats i thought was interesting to boot, if only as a throwback to a different era.
P.S.- it seems like the curves in his face are more gradual than in your model. Maybe roll the eye sockets into the cheekbones more gradually, and pout out his lower lip over a larger distance?
gauss - Thanks dude, I'm just learning as I go.
Blue - I decided to keep his eyes open a bit because I think the eyelids would cause trouble when baking the normal. I want to mess with some different expressions, so I think I'll end up moving some verts to get the hooded eyes. The entire eyesocket is definitely something I'll work on until the last second.
He has proper eyelids now.
Here's the lowres head with the body, which is mudbox bound.
I have to redo the suit sculpt because the one I have is corrupted or something.
Maybe the collar is a bit too wide.
Have you tried xnormal to bake your normal maps? it worked great for me on my old PC.
Psyk0 - Thanks so much for the suggestion. I just tried out xNormal and it worked beautifully and saved me a ton of time. I saw people discussing it in Technical Talk, but I didn't think to give it a shot. Now I feel kinda silly since it was so simple.
the cheekbones should be way more exaggurated.
AsylumSeaker - I like the idea enough to do it! It would be an easy job, too.
Right now I feel like his face is kinda squat looking, but it lines up pretty closely with my refs. In the past I've had tendencies to make faces long, so that may be part of it. Gettin' there.
Ok, now I just need to get the hair right. I'll probably need a few more planes before it will look more natural.
The hair is lacking a decent spec because I need to fix it. I hope I finish it tonight, otherwise I've wasted my Spring Break.
Zephir62 - I'll probably do that last.
Gmanx - It was a viewport render, but I will play with FOV renders, too.
I did a camo version and made his face a bit fatter. I'm not that crazy about how the water turned out.
Any chance of seeing the head texture map?
I'm sticking to vanilla renders/screengrabs now because I suck at rendering. I basically wasted all day doing terrible renders, hah.
t4paN - Yeah, at first I made his cheekbones too flat, and now they're a bit too puffy, like he was stung by bees or something. I'll push around some verts.
Zephir62 - I'll probably do that last.
Gmanx - It was a viewport render, but I will play with FOV renders, too.
I did a camo version and made his face a bit fatter. I'm not that crazy about how the water turned out,
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Ah shit, this one's spot on! Nice. I wanna see the final version of the dude.
Thanks to everyone for their crits and comments! I'm ready to call it finished. As a likeness, it has quite a few problems and I didn't capture the look I was after, but as character art I'm generally satisfied with it. I probably could have done a couple more layers of skin imperfections but... that'll have to be for next time around.
These likenesses are a pain eh. At some point it just starts looking like a stranger. Like looking at a word too long and it starts to look like you spelled your own name wrong.
I know you're done but I have a minor note...I find my eyes going to the arrow on his neck time after time
He recommends taking stills from movies, which I should have done in hind sight instead of using crap youtube screens. Anyway, I want to write a tutorial about something, so I'll definitely consider it.
TWilson - Thanks, dude. Your Brad Pitt model was one of my benchmarks, especially since you did a great job on the hair.
You hit the nail on the head about likenesses, though. I've looked at the model so many times, it'll take a month or so before I can look back at it and decide whether I like it.
I fixed the adam's apple, and I also couldn't resist doing one last render.
Thanks, it looks pretty interesting.
Just a 'stache away!