This is my first thread and my first complete female head mesh. I wanted to keep the mesh as simple as possible while still maintaining a reasonable level of anatomical accuracy. I’d appreciate your comments and recommendations regarding the topology and anatomy.
I’m still very new to Blender and have no artistic background, so I thought I could learn a lot by modelling a head. Once I have a decent mesh I’ll move on to sculpting, texturing and adding hair. The final product is still a long way off though, since I don’t yet know how to do any of these (and I have very little time to spend on this new-found hobby).
It should be noted that this is not my first attempt at a face/head, but this is the first complete head. I started over from scratch quite a few times (typically when the face started to remind me of Gollum…).
This did not happen in a day, and it almost didn’t happen at all. It started way back in February with Jonathan Williamson’s old “Adrianna” tutorial (which covers only the face). I’ve been working on and off ever since then, starting over from scratch several times. At one point I completely gave up and didn’t open Blender for three months. However, at the end of last month I started again and I knew that if I didn’t finish this mesh I’d probably quit for good. Anyway I finished it, at least to the point where I am fairly happy with it.
Regarding references. I decided early on that I do not want to spend any money on this (not yet, at least). So I did not use any professional reference images. I looked at the work of other people as much as I could, especially with regard to topology. And I started to look at faces a bit differently. I soon realised that, although I see a lot of faces every day, I don’t know what a face really looks like. I mean, I can tell the difference between the face of an ape and a beautiful woman, but creating a face from nothing is something else entirely. So I did a lot of research. I looked at the work of professional CG artists. I viewed many tutorials. I looked at the meshes of programs like MakeHuman and DAZ Studio. I looked at photos of faces that I find beautiful, and tried to quantify why I find it beautiful. I looked at the faces of people around me, and also at my own face (not that I look like a woman, of course).
So actually I used a vast pool of reference images, both from my head and from my computer screen. However, a few stand out. My main reference for topology was Jonathan Williamson’s topology overview of the head video. And to get the basic proportions right I created a front and side view reference image from the “MBA beauty masks” (I can’t post links yet, so just google it if you don’t know what I’m referring to).
I find the modelling process very difficult; it does not come naturally to me. And the fact that I have so little time for Blending doesn’t help either. It will be ages before I have a complete character. That being said, I’m enjoying the learning process very much, and I don’t think I’ll be quitting any time soon.
Oh, and sorry for all the text. At the moment I’m spending most of my time writing up my thesis (in an unrelated field), so my head is kind of in a writing zone at the moment.
its obvious that you have spent alot of effort on this and it clearly wasn’t wasted.
the topology is very clean and i can see no flaws at all, the overall proportions seem right and you nailed the ideal anatomical shapes.
seeing a result like this done by a guy with no artistic background is almost incredible.
i myself have tried to get a result like this countless times, and it wasn’t until i did pretty much the same things that you described until i got a similar result.
yeah most of us have the same goal not pay a dime, but search hard enough and you’ll find anything.
i stumbled across this wonderful set one day, feel free to use it. should be all you need for future projects. i don’t know where it originally comes from though.
That’s looking quite nice! Good work on the topology, it’s nice to hear you’ve found the tutorials helpful. I would love to see you take this to the next level now
digitalwolf33: Mmm…I don’t know where you got that reference set, but those are from 3d.sk, and to my knowledge that set is not free. Thanks for trying to help, but I’m not going to use them. I suggest you remove that link.
JonathanW: Jonathan! Thanks for replying. Most of the credit for this goes to you, without your tutorials it wouldn’t have turned out half as good. I can’t wait for the rest of your tutorial series on modeling the female body. Keep up the excellent work!
digitalwolf33: Hey, no problem, you didn’t know. Thanks for removing the link. I also asked the administrators to remove the link, because I did not know when you will be online again. I don’t know how the legal system works when it comes to the internet, but I didn’t want that link lying around for too long. I hope you’re not offended by me reporting the post to the administrators. It was not my intention to report you, but only the link. But you removed the link, so all is well. Cheers.
not pay a dime, but search hard enough and you’ll find anything.