Neanderthal Project

Edit delete, edit:delete, edit:Delete

Perhaps make the eyebrows bushier, and pull the bottom of the brow muscle down over the eye a bit more.

Ok, bushier eyebrows, and brow adjustment. This is also test of a war paint idea.


if you look at a profile of a neanderthal skull, i think the jaw area extends quite far forward, and the eyes are more sunken back.

an interesting project. good idea to sculpt first the skull, then muscles, and then the skin… also the skin texture and material looks great and warpaint too… since you work this way, i assume you go for realism, so i want offer some suggestions to get there. if you not strive for realism, please ignore me :wink:
the skull model already got some issues, i drew over to show. and i drew over the sideview how the outline should be about. the separation of the teeth is not the mouth separation, but this sits higher, about half way of the top teeth. also, mouth from sideview does not extend to the back teeth, but stops about under the eyes, and, yes as modron said, mouth area forward, more “apelike” and eyes set deeper. eyessockets bony part wrong from side, see drawing… i hope this helps.


@modron, thanks, jaw is out, eyes are in.

@doris

I was hoping you might offer some advice Doris. Thanks. And yes, I am going for realism.

I reworked the basemesh to conform to your guide lines. They are much appreciated. I need to really study them and figure out how you get from the cranium to those lines.

I think this version is much improved, and it’s heading in much better direction with your modifications. I changed the hair and added beads, which I feel is better fit and artistically more interesting. The strands will have more steps and be smoother for final renders.

edit: Higher sample version



cool I like the nose enhancement too.

yes, much better! … the "smile"crease from nosewings to mouthcorner, you have it very strong… like in a big smile, however you man is not smiling… i would soften this smileline to bring in harmony with the expression you have sculpted… also, try adding some flesh just above the top eyelid and below the brow, here is the area where the fluids for the eyes are stored, and in modern people this is visible, and in apes too, so i would put it here too. it will remove a bit of the surprised look…

@doris, Thank you.

The mouth corner crease has been softened considerably, and I made an attempt at the eye fix. The area between the brow, eyelid and eye is probably the toughest part of the face for me. This looks the most natural of them all I think, and has quieted the surprised look some.

Other changes:

  1. More cheek sculpting
  2. Asymetrry everywhere.
  3. Some lighting changes.
  4. Some quick post levels have been changed.
  5. Added a peacock feather

To do:
resulpt high multires, and rebake normals.
Figure out hair angle issue, steps are at 8, it should be enough?
forehead texture looks bad
work on body hair

Anything else?

I received a pm from an anthropologist, who I encouraged to share his thoughts on the specifics of the model, and hopefully they can offer some changes that would push it closer to a true Homo neanderthalensis

I am considering making another version with a female neanderthal. You very rarely see a female render. A few adjustments to the basemesh and the sculpting and a new skin texture might be a fun tangent, and a render with 2 of them might have a nice ying/yang duality to it.


I’m really impressed with the skin shader you have working now on this project…very realistic in my opinion. I don’t think I can offer much in the way of suggestions, but I’ll enjoy following it and see how it progresses.

yes more better :slight_smile: … i look foreard to see you integrate the suggestions of the anthropologist, ,i hope my saying was not off, afterall i am not trained with it, just told what my experience is with modern men, and how skull relates to what we see…
did peacocks live then already? … i like the idea of creating a woman too, that is certainly demanding, as i imagine them not so soft, due to their living circumstances, so feminity must show through bonestructure etc…

with the hair, you could try first on a sphere, just a small spot of hair, and find the good settings there. it goes quicker, since only few hairs, and so you can try better the settings. when you found pleasing setting, its easy to copy them to the heads hair… i had done 10 for steps and it was ok. maybe the hair is too thick?

@harleynut97. Thank you. I am interested in skin shaders, and I want to get more into painting layered masks/maps. This shader I made has a color map, a spec map, a normal map, and vein mask also used for bump.

@doris. I’ve heard back from the anthropologist, although he hasn’t offered any specific advice. I am sure your sketches are pretty close to the real morphology. I googled around about peacock but couldn’t find out exactly. I think I’ll remove it, it draws too much attention from the Neanderthal.

I took a crack at a female, but I don’t think I can post it. It just looks ridiculous, like a neanderthal in drag. I was able to get the smoothness back on the head hair by increasing the render, b-spline steps. I remember I had to do that once for hair with high frequency.

This is a harsh lighting test, with layer mask on highs and lows, kind of a faux hdri.




While he’s not the most handsome dude :slight_smile: You made a huge improvement in the hair with these latest renders.

wow fantastic last render.

but the skin on the leftside of the forehead looks a little bit like plastic. and the hair line needs a little bit more detail to push the project to full realism.
otherwise perfect! the hair is incredible

@harley, Thanks. More hair experiments. Shader and lighting tweaks.

@SirNik, What’s going on, how are you? And thank you for calling me out on the forehead, it sure does look plastic. I always skip work on foreheads, I think I’m so excited the face is done I just forget about it. I added more color texture to, more normal, resculpted some of it, and finally just combed over it. I realized that these guys were covered in hair, and that’s the direction I’m going to go. This is an experimental device of a mock-up book cover. There is 0 post on the face render, it is a pure layer with alpha from blender. I could (and will) adjust the levels, contrast it, desaturate a little, paint here and there and that will increase the realism, but I thought I would post a true render in this one.


The book cover is a test and contains 2 non-original artworks, the background grunge and the evolution clip art.

This one has a little tweaking:


Yeah it also works like this. Nice!
I’m fine, first week of military service survived, in few hours on the way to the second :ba:

This is amazing and very inspiring, I love it!
keep up the good job :slight_smile:

Thanks alon, I appreciate the compliment.