This is my first face model, I know the chin is short but I like it this way. I’m asking about topology, if it will be okay for animation or if there’s a lot more work ? more specifically regarding the nose-mouth area, I drew around the faceloops about which I feel some doubts.
Can you explain the color coding? Or is he really colored that way lol.
here a face I did today maybe it will work. I don’t really know but it shows how i did the loops without those two intersecting.
and by the way I’m not the loop master…there are some places in there I don’t like, but couldn’t come up with a quick fix…so take it will a cube of salt.
Thanks to all for your quick feedback.
Wow Orinoco, this face looks fantastic! is it your own work? I notice the loop for the middle fold of the upper lips. What it makes me realise, is that I will probably find my best answer into anatomy pictures. Yet could you already be more definitive about my scheme: the two intersecting loops are bad aren’t they? (if I leave them will they get in the way and just be usable for dilatation of the nostrils ! 
since this was my first try I will make a whole new one because I also want to get a good basic sequence for modeling steps of a face ( I started with a quad and went on extruding). Do you do that too?
my next may be worse ! but see you later.
Ah, no, I just realised you fooled me Orinoco :eyebrowlift2: :
aren’t we supposed to be on “blender artists”? there are Ngons on your attractive wireframe.
I still got some new loops into thanks to it, but I’m so far from a method, that I’ll have to get back to a simpler one like Jesse GP’s in the long run. for now, having fun getting lost in the weaving…
Here is the output with new doubts: I tried to do a nose-mouth loop, but I have poles (red on the picture) that Orinoco didn’t have. Are they bad where they are?
No, it’s not my work, and no, it’s not originally done in Blender. It is a good reference drawing but I unfortunately can no longer find the original to tell you who made it. As I recall, the original color key was in portugese, so I think it was done by someone in Brazil.
Color coding: Red - essential. Black - Useful. Yellow - helpful. Blue - back of skull, doesn’t deform. In earlier threads there was a lot of controversy regarding the yellow loops.
Even though it has n-gons, they are really not essential elements to forming the loops. I had no intention of fooling you, ray.n.baud, a lot of 3D modeling is not software specific. I’ve learned a ton from reading non-Blender tutorials and looking at videos of non-Blender work flow, and so can you.
My latest work’s in the links in my sig, and you can always see my earlier attempts by clicking on search>>advanced>> find all threads started by me.
The eye loop in the cartoon ref is kind of weird. Since I’ve never tried to animate, I don’t know if it would be a problem. It looks like a spiral loop surround by two self interesting loops. The loop that starts right above the lip and ends at the base of the eyes is really cool. I saw that for the first time a day or two before you posted it and was wondering if that was in a lot of models and if I just wasn’t paying close enough attention.
I fixed some issues in my loops no idea once again how well it would work but now its free of all but one 6 sided pole. This is the first head I’ve made where I can cut freely and the cut will never intersect itself. If you want the blend for it to see how well they’ll work let me know.
I think this is one of the tests for good loops.
There are two main schools of thought about eye loops, one, shown in the cartoon, is the “zorro mask” where the loops end up going around both eye sockets and crossing the nose. The other places individual loops around each eye and the loops share an edge or a row of faces along the bridge of the nose.
The yellow loops are in some models and are somewhat controversial. I suspect they’d be useful in cartoon characters with extreme facial expressions, although I’ve seen a lot of meshes that didn’t have them.
Orinoco, your work looks good to me, but I’m of very little expertise.
I sure learned a lot by looking at this colored cartoony head though it had Ngons and The color legend also adds great information, I just didn’t feel confident about if I’d be able to do it with quads. I don’t want to get lost, so what do you think about my last question on the nose-mouth external loop, before I continue?
Jessegp, Your mesh seems clean, do you think you could remember or find pictures of a few of your early steps, did you extrude edges or drew point loops and filled in polys after, or even box modeled?
I know my questions may sound stupid, but I want to get a little faster by trying various methods.
“This is the first head I’ve made where I can cut freely and the cut will never intersect itself I”
I don’t see how important this is. Maybe with the file.
Like that last wireframe of mine?
What is Swiss Mountain Dog ? is there a way I can suppress my own post (like this one)? to tidy things up?
Personally I use edge extrustion, but the fastest method is probably going to be the one you use the most. I don’t have any early pictures but if you have a fast internet connection heres a link to mr_bomb’s adriana tut.
This head uses the same reference as his. I made it to try out the method he uses to create that little crease that runs around the nostril. I’m not sure how close my loops are to his though.
Bottom of the page is the vid tut 80mb I’ve only made three heads or so and my work method would look like a sloppy version of mr_bomb’s.
http://blenderartists.org/cms/index.php?id=67
I build a face in this order nose bridge, eye loops, little pit of cheek, mouth, chin, forehead, side face, ear, rest of head. Once I have the face filled in I go back and try and fix all the loops that don’t match what I’m used to seeing in more professional modellers work. I figure I may not know why it works but the least I can do is mimic it in hope that it will work.
The only good thing I can think about when it comes to your loops not cross is the ease of adding details. I can cut additional loops with out creating additiion problems to quickly allow me to ram detail where I need it.
https://mywebspace.wisc.edu/jgphillips/web/fface.blend
I’ll edit this post and throw my blend up in a couple minutes
Thanks for the sequence since I have the lousiest connection you could imagine at the moment.
Okay, so you can build anything you want with that basic mesh, maybe you’ll even make it your default scene? 
I’ll try your workflow right now. and then, maybe check my exercice against your file.
C’est un bouvier bernois.
You can edit your posts to take things out (like duplicate posts, it happens sometimes) but sometimes removing or supressing comments just makes threads more confusing, especially if someone’s already responded. You can’t actually remove the post itself.
jessegp outlines a pretty good work flow. I’d recommend starting with the face loop (across the forehead, down alongside the ears and along the jawline) then putting in the bridge of the nose by extruding from the top of the face loop. Make sure you get the shape of the face loop correct (especially the chin) before moving on.
Good loops not only help when adding details, they also help when you shape your mesh using proportional editing, and allow easier and smoother deformations when you animate.
In order to find good edgeflows, I couldn’t think of a better way to test edge loops than to animate them, Jessegp’s mesh seemed fine. if someone is experienced in making shape keys I’dd be glad to hear his method: do you actually manipulate face loops or you still have to tweak each vertex?
If i can attach a blend file I will post it later. can I?
