First full bust sculpt - Likeness

Vailias

Been working on this for the past week or so. About 4-5 nights worth of actual work. I'm calling it done. I'm reaching the point of diminishing returns, and I have the feeling that there is still something off with the lips, but it may be just expression.
Hopefully she's recognizable without reading the image text.

Comments and crits are welcome though. Going to be kicking out a few more of these in the coming weeks.

iWeReZ

The ears look too far "in" the head and the thing in the middle of the nose looks too low.

Still better then what i can do.

DarthNater

Yeah, I could tell who it was without looking, but the ears are too far into the head. Looks good otherwise! I've never been able to sculpt people so kudos

MoP

Hey, not bad. I didn't recognise her at first (probably due to lack of hair and texture) but when you mentioned the name I can see the likeness, so that's good.

There's something definitely very wrong about the ears. Mainly they're too small, and as DarthNater mentioned you seem to have really shoved them into the skull a bit. They're also too high up, from what I can tell, here's a pic:


The lack of teeth or any indication of what's going on inside her mouth is also making this sculpt look strange. I would either close the mouth if you intend to show it that way in the end, or add some teeth, gums and tongue inside the mouth so that you can work with those in place, it will really make a big difference.

In general it kinda looks like you've gone too high-res too early (as many people often do), and as a result you're lacking better defined mid shapes and stuff is looking a bit "wobbly" in general, especially around her eyes.

I think if you refine the sculpt more at a lower subdivision level and try to get a lot of reference from all angles, you will be able to improve this a lot and make it instantly recognisable.

Vailias

Thanks all for the commentary, glad she's gotten to the recognizable stage.

Mop: Her ears are HUGE in that photo! wow. Must be the earrings.
She really does seem to have smallish ears in most of the photos I've found without jewelry. i.e. this


Part of the issue with the ears and eyes is my base mesh. Too much detail is causing problems, even though its all quads and has a decent flow, its causing issues. The ears have too much topology in the lobe and not enough through the conch, and after a reference check, they;re placed too high on the head by a cm or two.
Other trouble I've been having is figuring out what pulls on her with expression changes, and how much. Cheeks and lips obviously, but her nose seems to flare quite a bit when she smiles also.

Here's the ref sheet I assembled. Its one of the only sets of photos I've been able to find of her providing a number of angles all in the same setting at the same age,



Thanks again. I'll see if I can push her a bit further, then rebuilt my base bust to be a better starting point for the other heads I want to make.

MoP

Ah fair enough, I guess her ears have got bigger as she's aged (they never stop growing!). You've definitely put them too far in though. I see a lot of people doing that when they're working from photos with perspective but sculpting in ortho views, you need to take the perspective into account when doing that.
I have a feeling if you looked at your model in a front-on view now with perspective applied, you'd barely even see the ears at all.