The concept for my Blending Life image is a close up of an old man holding a camera near his face (not over his eyes. Holding it as if he’s only contemplating taking a photo.) and looking focused at something out of the shot.
Since I placed 3rd in the bwc, I have a membership to 3d.sk. I scoured the site and came up with a set of references I like. Also found references for an old Nikon F model camera.
Congrats on the BWC, I liked your image a lot.
The concept sounds nice, love to see how you make out.
Also, I believe I have that camera, if you need more reference pictures I’d be happy to take some.
Having A LOT of trouble with the reference images. While drawing out curves to guide the modeling process, it became frustratingly apparent that the front image is actually taken at an angle somewhat lower than straight on. I can’t really figure out what I’m going to do about this. 
More refs for the camera would be great. 
I’m lacking a top down and a good back image, if you find the time.
more Modeling WIP:
(think I finally got the bridge of the nose right.)
Oh yeah,I’m kind of halfway following this tutorial here to try to get the topology a bit nicer:
Finished up the mouth and the borders of the face, and crappily projected the reference onto the mesh, just to see how it was all lining up. (It’s shaded in GLSL in the image.)
A bit hard to tell because of the angle… but looks good so far
Finished modeling and did some texturing. Made a four-layer skin material and made some basic eyes. is exhausted
Fixed a lot of the modeling problems in the last post, cleaned the texture up a lot, and gave him a pose. Made some particle hair (in 2 systems) and modeled and textured a hat.
He looks a bit too much like a farmer right now, but I think that will change when I model him an old battered leather jacket and the camera’s in the shot.
How about him using an old 2x3 wide format cam - the kind you look down the top.
Just an idea.
I think I’ll stick with the nikon. I think it fits the concept I had in mind better. Thanks for the input though.
Anyway, did some work on the eyes.
Working on a pair of glasses and this image happened.
Xray Glasses!
Haha, just wanted to post that, as the wrong normals make it look so weird.
Holy cow youve done a lot of work.
I have some time tomrrow, I’ll upload the pictures then.
Could you explain the materials used in eye. I am curious. I suppose you have four materials:
- White (sclera): SSS material?
- Black: mate material without reflection
- Iris: ???
- Transparent: 95% refraction 5% reflection???
Right about the white. The black as well. The iris is a matte material. But there are two layers of the transparent, and it uses nodes to use the brightness of a chrome material to determine the alpha of a matte white material, as well as a specular highlight, with some curves.
Here’s the blend. I took out the angmap for the world, so I would suggest adding one to see the reflections.
Eyeball v.blend (321 KB)
look at your side ref he has a very hangy neck but not a skinny one but yes I agree its almost like an AVALANCHE other wise loving the textures which creates great impact to the viewer.