Hello everyone, this is my first post here, I’m new to Blender, never done a complete model yet (I’m the sort of person who dives straight into the deep end) So my first project is rather ambitious, a realist model of my own head.
I think I’m finally making some progress, it looks humanish now and I thought I would post it up here, see what people think. I’ve uploaded my reference pictures (I took the photos myself, which is why my eye’s a bit crooked in the front view) and a front and side of what I’ve got so far.
Thanks for the comment, I have fiddled around with Blender in the past, which has familiarised me with the basic concepts, but this is the first time I’ve ever just sat down and decided to model something. I’ve been using Mr_Bomb’s(sp) excellent tutorial on head modelling, I’m at work at the moment, but over my lunch break I’ll post the wireframes for it, then people can get down to telling me what I did wrong
OK, here are the wireframe shots for the front and side, I haven’t really done a great deal with the top and back of it, I’ve been focusing on getting the face right first, and just added the rest as a sort of reference.
Hey. Im a newb to this as well. And I dove right into modelling a human face too. Dont know if your still having trouble with the eyes. But I just figured out a tip (about 15 min ago lol) If you turn the subsurf (if you have that on) off on the Sphere and turn it back to solid, you will see where the pupil should be. Once I did that, I managed to get the area around the eye to perfect.
Your head appears to be a bit long and narrow. I suspect there’s some perspective distortion in the reference photo you’re using for the front view (it would happen in the side view, too, but affects the profile less.) Since you’ve got yourself right there, make some actual measurements of your head’s height and width, and compare the ratio to the ratio in the photograph. I think you’ll find you need to adjust the photo so it’s a bit wider.
Well, I’ve been doing a bit more modeling, and have the ears there now, the verts are pretty ugly, so next step will be to go tweaking, then I’ll start working out how the sculpting works.
This is all really personal preference, but there are two things i’ve noticed in your wire that I’ve always ran from.
there is a bit of your forehead that creates a c-loop (right in the middle). Being as this probably wont be animated any time soon you shouldn’t have an issue. But the minute you go to animate the forhead (in any natural motion) that c-loop is going to pull in your forhead. (actually just noticed it would be hidden by the hair line so you should be fine.)
Each eye should be made up of its own loop. Your’s sorta do…but there is currently one big loop going around both eyes making it look like your model is wearing googles (in wire). Which again…is personal preference and perfectly alright. The finished work is what is important…but if your going to animate (in any real motion) you may have issues with deformation. Best bet to have each eye have its own set of loops that “meet” in the center of the forehead instead of just one loop going thru the forhead and around both eyes. Also…and I didn’t see the point to this when I started doing it but it really helps out in the long run…loops for the eyes should “spiral” out from the eye itself. It is hard to accomplish this spiral initially…but will make it very hard for you to screw up your topology on the rest of the head, as the spiraling would (on its own) begin creating the rest of the loops for you…all you would have to do would be to take the already forming loop and just extend and place it in the direction you want it to continue going.
OK, I’ve been tweaking and playing around, and I seem to have hit a wall, I’ve got it this far, and it looks like a face, but I can’t quite seem to get it to look any better, especially the mouth and eyes/eyebrows. Any help on what I’m doing wrong, what I can improve on, etc. would be greatly appreciated, I’ve attached what I’ve currently got, I’m mainly working on the front and ears, so the back of the skull is still not really pretty, and I think if I’ve done it right I’ve got the .blend attached too, I’ve also had my brother take some newer, better reference photos.
@HouseArrest: Thanks for the tips, you’re right, I wont be animating it any time soon, and I don’t think I have enough courage to try fix the loops around the eyes at this stage, but I’ll keep it in mind for next time.
My suggestion? Don’t be afraid to make the changes mentioned above! Try a few tutorials, learn about the knife tool, loop cutting, vertex merging, etc. You will be SO glad you did!
Save a backup, so you can always come back if I’m wrong.
One big helpful tip for shooting references: Zoom the camera all the way in, then place it far back enough so that you can get your head in the frame. This will eliminate most of the perspective distortion and will let you model a lot more accurately. Also, try putting the camera on a tripod or a fixed flat surface while taking the pictures; this will help when lining them up later.
I used the .blend and fixed some topology next to the ears and that pointy spot on the forehead. I also pulled back the corners of the mouth somewhat. Hope that helps.
If you’re about to make any drastic changes and aren’t sure if you’ll have enough undos later, just duplicate the object and move it into the other set of layers (MKEY>select layer). If you mess up just grab your backup object and start over. I do this all the time.
I can’t thank you enough BlenderRoid for that help with the reference photo, I just couldn’t work out what to do, I’ve just got Mums help with taking some new ones, which are much more like me
My biggest crit starts with the reference photos your using… Head up to your last post where you have your modeled face on one side and the ref photos on the other… The perspective distortion from your front shot in the reference photo is quite noticeable… And in turn when you modeled your face if think the proportion while not too far off… Are just a bit, and enough to give the viewer that uneasy feeling… You know, its something, you can’t pick it out though. But the viewer can see it… I would recommend using a camera with a zoom or telephoto lens… The further you can stand back from the camera and then just have someone zoom in… That will give you a photo with the perspective distortion dulled down and might help out.
There is a sticky in the modeling forum on poles and loops, and an even longer version exists at www.subdivisionmodeling.com, that I think is a must read for any organic modeler it will equip you with the right tools and understanding that will help you out with controlling the loops on your model. It should help you out in making some of the changes HouseArrest suggested.
But this is a good start, you should have seen some of my earlier attempts at head modeling not that anyone ever will.
If you are going for a photorealistic look, it seems to me that (compared to the reference photos) your model’s nose is a bit wide, the upper lip is a bit long and a bit too much towards the back of the head which makes the also the jaw area look too long (the last one looked closer to the photos in the previous meshes, I think). Incidentally, now also the upper and lower edges of the mouth are on the same vertical line, which is not the case and was better in the previous meshes.
p.s. I don’t know whether you have experience in drawing or not, but if no, then I’d encourage you to do a few pencil drawings of your face. Projection methods really don’t help that much developing your observational skills, altough they do take the hardest parts of the process away, ie. seeing and analyzing what you see. Unfortunately these are also among the most important parts of the process, artistically.
Thanks for the advice, now that I’ve got proper reference photos I’m think I’ll just start from scratch again, since the photos are quite different from the ones with the skewed perspective, and I’m having to redo all the verts anyway, and it will let me redo the topology better.
@fsloth: Yeah, drawing would be good, but one of the reason I like Blender is that words have a hard time describing how bad I am at trying to draw…
and I thought I would post it up here, see what people think. I’ve uploaded my reference pictures (I took the photos myself, which is why my eye’s a bit crooked in the front view) and a front and side of what I’ve got so far.
