Old man's portrait

Hi everyone, this is the first head sculpt I’ve made that doesn’t looks like some weird mutant. Something still feels off and I can’t put my finger on it. I would really appreciate if you would help me improve it !
Thanks


Hello! I think the main problem is that the skull is not normal, the frontal bone, the temporal fossa, the cheek bone, and the proportion of the nose, made him look weird. Other than that, your sculpting skills with the program are great, just use more references, and study some anatomy and you will be OK!

I think the main problem is that the eye-gropes are really deep, while the actual eyes are really small. It doesn’t fit together.
He doesnt actually have any eye-lids.

I was expecting some nose hairs:D
I think the face is absolutely ok, it depends on you. ofc, the nose is too big and so on, but there are people out there that looks exactly like that, if it scares its up to you.
I think the first thing to correct here i mean its really rainy and his face is pretty dry, so maybe put some drops or wet parts on his face.
I like the expression btw…

Reminds me of westworld, very nice rendition!

Is it based Walter White from Breaking Bad? I like the skin texture. The general proportions of the face are off as mentioned already.

One thing that would improve it would be to lower the ear position and make it a bit bigger. Older people tend to have larger ears. The viewing angle is an upshot of the face which would make the top of the ears possibly at around the same level or slightly lower than the eyes.

I like the eyes but they are quite small. The top of the nose would benefit from being slightly inset so that brow arch overhangs it more. This will put the top of the nose in a slight shadow.

good luck with it!

The upper part of the nose looks too wide and not deep enough. Cheek bones look like they could be stretched out on the z axis.

So well, it’s some time passed by and You did not answer… (Maybe, because the mentions weren’t usefull for You?)

First of All: You title Your work as “Old Man”. Well this might be a discussable point of view. (When I’ve been a startin’ Teeny everbody above 20 was “old” in my eyes :slight_smile: )

But to go serious: The face does not really look old. Midage or max. end of midage. For beein’ seen as “really” old the face has to less natural crinkels. But that’s only a sidenote.

There are many things within that head, that do not seem to be natural. There are many deformations - and here I mean real under skin, base skull deformations. The most obvious is the right (real right - in the picture “left”) eye socket, which is definetely to be noticed as much bigger and also deformed - or better - there it seems as if a part of the cheekbone is missing. (there are many others - but I’d like focus on something else)

The overall character of this man is unique. And in general not even discussable in sense of “there are no eye-lids” or something like this. But from the point of view of the final composition, there are some things obviously not “in best shape”:

  1. (I guess You’d liked to show a fresh shaved face, after wearing a beard for a long time…) Then the shading path of the skin there is incosistent. It’s especially broken at the chin area, the lower jaw bone and also partially at the neckline.
  2. Left face side (so right again in the picture); there is runnin’ some sort of “bulge”, startin’, exposed, at the hight of the eyebrow (seems at the center between temple bone and ear) and runs down in a “S”-curve ending near the mouth angle. If this should have been a crinkle - it’s odd, wiered and not natural. If it should have been a scar - well, then the shading and/or colour is incorrect.
  3. Lightning - It seems as if the face is beamed at by high-intense small, white spotlights. One from left and the other from right. The (eventually shaved) skin at the cheeks goes somore nearby to white or a high graded grey, but does not “fade-i/fade-out” believable as a form of a “circle”. Cause the effect stops at the hight of the jaw bone abruptly.
  4. Materials, colours and shaddows of the cloths are flat, seem to be “painted-over” on the final image and - thus not to be strengthend in order to catch away the focus from the face - should be improved drastically, because the highly detailed face causes a destructive irritation by the unstructured cloths. That might have been intention, but then You should have left out the rain and the detailed background (thus blurred out).

Conclusion: On a first glance - Wow! Really good. A real character. After some time of lookin’ at (as You might do also), things start up to be wiered. Scars look different than healthy skin parts. Crinkles are not “static” like scratches on wood. (You did crinkles realy well at he forehead… so I guess…) Missing skeleton parts (the right eye socket) are not "runnin’ out of a skull, without leaving signs on the skin-parts… and so on.

Hope this helps a bit to “get the path of new focus”. I’d be more detailed… so if You want… let me know. (In this case it would be nice to see the raw mesh, without compositions, shaders and so on. And maybe a turn arround (front, 1/4 left, left, 3/4 left, back… and so on… it would help to understand the overall sculpture)

Hello,

I just wanted to say that I find your work great! This “old man” of yours ,like previously said, doesn’t look =)

This could be a stylized face, aiming for an artistic feel but not realistic. I like it though, it is not in the uncanny valley.

In my opinion, you should leave this one as is. If you want realism, then you’ll have to study some anatomy. Learn bone and muscle structure, and learn where wrinkles can be. Yup, as old as a person might be, they just can’t get wrinkles everywhere and randomly. There is some logic behind wrinkles, and that horizontal wrinkle on his right cheek is impossible =)

I agree that this model is pretty good as is.

Notice, however, that in the “thumbnail” on the list-of-posts page, it does look like the old man has a black eye …!

hi. I believe one of the biggest problem that you are facing is the proportions, as Mike J.Gee had mentioned. but I’d like to add some more explanations of my own.
One of the many things that people makes mistakes when modeling anatomy is getting the proportions wrong but already working on the details.
The one crucial rule that every character artist has to remember (as well as any artists) is getting the general shapes right.
The details are minor, and could be neglected.
Second rule is to always look at other people’s notable works as well as real references whenever sculpting. Let’s take this one as an example:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]495191[/ATTACH]
This sculpture was done by a traditional artist, https://glaucolonghi.deviantart.com/art/Old-man-Bust-Study-193852015
and just by comparing it constantly as you sculpt will automatically make yours better. That said, let’s look at some of the most notable errors that you might have encountered.

Number one: Brow ridges.
I am sure people have mentioned this already, but the character you made has extremely oversized brow ridges, and to me, makes him looks like run-of the mill Neanderthal
[ATTACH=CONFIG]495192[/ATTACH]

Even though human’s eyes may sink due to old age, it does not produces oversized ridges :slight_smile: also, with the combination of ridges, his eyes have sunken down too far, I recommend softning up those parts and add details later.

Second, his eyes are too small! small as in, as whole. Like the images above, his eyes needs to grow in size. Including his pupils, iris, and cornea. Make his eye lids larger as well.

Third, his cheek bones are too sharp and sunken down! I think you’ve got the right idea that cheeks bones pronounces as of old age, but it does not changes the structure that far! o.O Lowing down the cheekbones, making them denser would really help bring out those realism that you seek!

Fourth, his nose and nostrils are way too big! but I think someone already mentioned that!

Fifth, make sure you get the muscular structure right! The parts of his cheek muscles has been broken, and its as if it doesn’t exist!



for example, Let’s examine the sculpture here! This man is apparently very old in age, but as you can see, you can cleary make out his muscular structure!

that said, the skin material that you’ve made looks spectacular. Since its a rainyday, perhaps making the glossiness higher would be better to fit the mood overall? Good job and good luck for the final piece!!!