Hey everyone. Trying to create Rami Malek portraying Elliot from Mr.Robot. I am going for realism.
For past portrait attempts I just went straight to sculpting, which proved difficult getting the likeness down. This time I am trying something different. Right now I just have a basic shape block of his head, trying to get his likeness recognizable with just simple forms before moving into more detail.
Latest
Quick update on the blocking. The positioning and the size of the eyes is always the part that kills me. Does it look right?
Another update. Anyone have any good tips for making the epicanthal folds? I hate those.
Here is an update with minor changes. Does anyone have any feedback for getting the likeness closer? Or should I move onto more detailed secondary and tertiary forms?
Starting to be pleased with how hes looking at this base level. Excuse my framing, watching the show too much.
Started working on the clothing. This is my first time making clothes. There must be a better way to do this right?
Another update on the face with some minor changes. Reduced the iris size a tad. It feels more like him now. If anyone has any critic please let me know. I could use another set of eyes.
Started a new multi-resolution layer and have started adding secondary details around the important bits of the face. If anyone is out there please respond.
Wow, it looks really great. First I read “realism” and saw the red and I unfairly lolled a little. Then I read who you were going for and was like, “Yeah, that’s him. That’s definitely him.”
On the frontal, I think he has really really distinctive lower eyelids. His face isn’t quite so chiselled, almost sallow, and he has some Don Knots eyelid bulge going on where I don’t think you’re all the way there yet. But certainly good enough to be recognizable.
I think the lateral view is a little off. Do you have a lateral shot of the actor? Maybe working with a different view can show you different things.
Re: clothes, there’s kind of a better way, but it’s not easier, it’s harder. It’s to sew the panels together using cloth modifiers and physics. But Blender’s implementation isn’t the best, I think some other software can do it better.
OTOH, a lot of people do great stuff just by sculpting seams and wrinkles onto clothes, that might be more up your alley, particularly if you don’t care about topo or are going to just retopo it all anyways.
Haha maybe I should have stopped my work after the first post since it was already photoreal with those Mat Cap renders.
I’ve seen a few videos on youtube like this. There seems to be a gap between the seams, is there any way to fill that up? Since it’s simulation based I’m assuming it should work for animation? I’d like to take audio from a scene in the show and animate him for animation practice.
Regarding your other points, I tried some of those suggestions you said and it added a lot to the character. I also went with more dramatic but realistic lighting.
These are the image references I am using. I learned about this program pureref from Andrew Kramer. It’s really nice to have on a second monitor and I just discovered you can switch it over to grayscale with a hotkey. Turns out using black and white is vital for better likeness.
Looking very good.
Sphere, nose, skin matcap. Boom, ship it.
I’ve seen a few videos on youtube like this. There seems to be a gap between the seams, is there any way to fill that up? Since it’s simulation based I’m assuming it should work for animation? I’d like to take audio from a scene in the show and animate him for animation practice.
If you’re doing tight stuff, my experience is that the seams need to be cleaned up manually afterwards, but if you’re handy with blender edit mode tricks, that’s not much trouble. If you’re doing loose stuff, like this hoody, sewing force should completely join the seams and all you need is a remove doubles on them (if you wanted, maybe not even that.) But you’d probably want to do some manual work to detail the seams. Although I guess some good texturing (incl. bump/ normals) could take care of that.
I’ve heard that it’s good for animation, but I think there are some techniques/tricks to it that I don’t know about, and cloth physics are too slow for me to bear. I just use it to make meshes for skeletal animation. For which, well, it’s fun, it can give good results, but I wouldn’t really use it in fire-and-forget mode.
Thanks bandages! Love the tips.
Ok what do I need to bring this likeness closer. He is looking pretty good for the sides but the dead on look it still doesn’t quite look like him.
Looks really good !
And don’t worry too much, the dead on look should come with the texturing 
