face sculpt - crits are very welcome

bisse123

Hi. I've created this sculpt in Mudbox and plan to animate him for a school project I'm doing (a combination of bones and morph targets) - he must look and act as realistically as possible.
Below are the first iteration of the sculpt and the basic proportions are laid out.
I would be very grateful if you could give me some feedback as to which aspects could be improved.

bisse123

bump

nfrrtycmplx

he isn't terrible, but he isn't terribly realistic either...

every feature is soft, and regular... he has perfect semitry and lacks character.

the head is shaped funny... seems like he doesn't have temples or any muscles on his head...

his face has no wrinckles to speak of... as if he's never had an emotion in his life... reminds me of bicentinial man...

i suck at spelling, sorry.

so far good start? compare his face to a photo of a face from a man with a similar build... he looks fat.

WillMac

nfrrtycmplx wrote: »

his face has no wrinckles to speak of... as if he's never had an emotion in his life... reminds me of bicentinial man...
.

:poly121: ha ha.

Yeah, he is a good start... where are his ear holes.. and also.. he needs some expression lines looking as he does, just as nfrrtycomplex said. More adam's apple, build it all up... add some pores and what not. Good start though, be intersting to see how you pan out with this project!

EDIT: Just to double re-iterate this a good start, you are just blocking in, and it is WIP... so "terrible" is not the word to pay mind to here. Just add some more details...

Urthrese

i'd say he's close but he's just not there yet. he needs character like they said and something that really makes him feel alive. look at a lot of reference and see what you can do to make it more realistic.

http://www.clevelandleader.com/files/baldman.jpg

there is an image of a bald guy i googled. look at the two real close. perhaps even overlapped in photoshop and just see the differences.

bisse123

Thanks for the feedback guys. To elaborate on some of the points raised:
- "every feature is soft.." <- I agree about this one especially in the eyes regions. In this regard his mouth is sharper than in the eyes region, so yes this needs improvement.

- "he looks fat" <- It is with purpose that I want him to be slight overweight as I feel this could help in giving him a more friendly personality. Don't know if this is true though.

- "the head is shaped funny" <- Maybe I should have sculpted more shape into this area before I uploaded the pics. Definitely agree that this area need more work in terms of outlining the muscles and bones beneath.

- "where are his ear holes" + adam's apple <- yup, have to sculpt those. :-)

- In terms of wrinkles, pores and asymmetric features I deliberately did not sculpt that in yet, because I want to improve the basic shape and feel of the character first.

Thanks again for the feedback and I look forward to post progress pics in the coming months.

Edit: Also, thanks for the reference pic Urthrese although I currently plan on having him grow hair at some point.

Calabi

His forehead should at the sides should come in more. From the top view it should look a bit like an egg.

keres

The "nasal notch" I think it is called looks a bit too deep, likewise with the pupils. From my understanding, eyes are almost completely material-based. Very little geometry, if any.

Looking good, though. Keep it up I really wish I could sculpt.

bisse123

Second iteration. There is still a lot to improve on;
- More details in ears
- Eyebrows are weird - maybe I change them to 'polygon' when I get to doing hair.
- More asymmetry
- Smaller eyes
- More details in sculpt and texture and generally more work with texture.

bisse123

Some time has went by since last post. I have currently animated a head. This has been a huge learning experience for me.
The video of the sequence is included in the below survey.
Would you be so kind to take the survey? It takes around 5 mins to complete - you will be helping me out a lot.

https://edu.surveygizmo.com/s3/568147/727949d5e546

Thanks!

nfrrtycmplx

uhmm how is this related to your model?

bisse123

There is a video of the current model inside the survey.
As I stated in the first post, this was done in relation to a school project. The survey is basically what I ended up with in the end.

nfrrtycmplx

terrible survey... and the head was not in the survey... I got a george carlin sound clip thing with some shitty animation on a terrible representation of an old man's head.

If this is part of a class, your teacher is cruel.

nfrrtycmplx

as for the head... you had something that looked 75% like a great start... then textures were applied... kind of...

there are so many resources for human head anatomy... and texturing characters that something like what is seen in the survey should only happen if not given proper feedback in your classes... and your peers should be able to spot most of the problems.

I find classrooms to be overly competitive though... the ones I was in that is... people focusing a lot of energy on trying to be the best in class, and not on learning how to properly do shit.

Seems like instructors are starting to get happy with knowing they showed you what the button did, and you proved you understood the use of the button in some way... but not terribly interested in teaching people what good rigging/animation is about.

Most (if not all) of the students that come out of these classes that are of any quality, are kids who learned this shit on their own time (outside of class projects)...

spend more time doing personal shit... do what you have to to get through your classes, and polish up your skills in a particular specialized area...

it's cool that you understand animation, but clearly not your strongest hand... and if you do want to be an animator, you need to study up on what makes a good facial rig and a good facial expression/animation. the dead lifeless thing in the survey is enough to totally make me type way too much about something that no body probably cares about .

I'm not trying to be an asshole, though it may seem that way... i'm just wicked frustrated for all the people who spend sooo much money on these classes and end up with final products like the one in the survey...

It begs the question... "What are they teaching you guys?"

sorry... I just don't get it.

Illusive

how are you doing your texturing? projection? if that's the case i think it could help if you project photos of eyes/eyebrows to get the proportions and such right then you can sculpt the brows over the top of the texture and they should look a lot nicer then the ones you have.
also gives you a better idea of the size of the eyes, like you said yours def need to be smaller.
also i think you need to put a lot more detail on his head, i know he's bald and all but some small blemishes or stubble or something could help blend it with the rest of the head.
another thing that needs fixing is the lip textures.

bisse123

Thanks for the honest feedback. Much appreciated!

Some background info might be in order by now. The university I'm currently enrolled in has this line called; Multimedia Technology and Games. It's a line dedicated to studying (not develop) games, so they do not provide any teaching related to the field. Instead they are very skilled at talking about stuff they have read and theories they have developed, which is rather pathetic, because this industry requires one to at least understand the practical side of things to make meaningful decisions.
The talking head you see in the survey, is my first ever attempt at digital animation, and everything that has went into it has been by my own hand. I have learned everything by my self and the web in a very short time.
It's an understatement to say that it has been too big a challenge relative to my skills, and I would never have attempted this had it not been because of the particular course.
Nevertheless, now it's done and it has been an enormous learning experience to go through a full workflow in creating the animated head.
I am tempted to conclude that in going through the complete workflow and failing so hard in the process, I might have learned more than I would have done taking smaller steps towards it.

For my coming personal projects, I look forward to go deeper into

-Anatomy
-Texturing
-Rendering
-Topology

and much more. :-)

bisse123

Illusive wrote: »

how are you doing your texturing? projection? if that's the case i think it could help if you project photos of eyes/eyebrows to get the proportions and such right then you can sculpt the brows over the top of the texture and they should look a lot nicer then the ones you have.
also gives you a better idea of the size of the eyes, like you said yours def need to be smaller.
also i think you need to put a lot more detail on his head, i know he's bald and all but some small blemishes or stubble or something could help blend it with the rest of the head.
another thing that needs fixing is the lip textures.

I should have used more time on the eyes. This was one of the more difficult elements.
The texture is not projected more I have used samples from the photo-reference. Thanks for the advice with projecting the eyes/eyebrows onto the mesh. This was something that I did not pursue further in the initial fases.


EDIT: Oh, btw I'm not sure if you comment on the picture above or the video in the survey. In either case it is still true. :-)

bisse123

High poly sculpt of face used in survey:

bisse123

Some users might have difficulties watching the video, due to some conflicts between https and http. Therefore I provide a new link below. This is essentially the same link but without the 's' in https:
http://edu.surveygizmo.com/s3/568147/727949d5e546

Please try the survey again, if you had problems with the first link.

EDIT: and thanks a lot for the answers I have gotten so far!


Bonus:
A 1 hour sculpt done a couple of months ago: