I am having trouble getting to a Head Shape

I made my face but now I am having trouble getting to a head shape. Does anyone have any tips on how to make a head shape after you have made the face? Or it it better to start with the sphere and make a head and than work from that to make the face on the head?

Can you show us what you’ve got so far? It depends entirely on how you’re approaching modelling your head. unless you’re sculpting, starting off with a sphere isn’t going to be the best method generally speaking.

Show us what you have, and we’ll be able to help more. :slight_smile:

https://paste.pics/84fd8e0ae7614a8cd012e3b38b954e78

This is what i have thanks

Ok, So one thing I’d always say is, that you should keep your initial topology minimal. At the moment, you’re poly count is a little high I’d say, and a lot of the geometry seems a little unnecessary. You want to first get your basic shapes correct before moving into the detail.

I’d also suggest looking at as many videos as you can find for modelling a head, which show a good workflow. I would always recommend the Blenderella series to people. It’s a little old, but the general steps are very helpful.

There are plenty floating around on youtube too.

So if im serious about learning blender. You recommend I pay for a subscription to that site?

I would hate to start over I have the face done almost perfect. I turned on the subsurface and texture paint. Take a look: https://paste.pics/6be1badca8e8b8bde4e87926d5ae164a

Thanks,

That tutorial series is free for the head portion (look on the left hand side the folder structure says head - open it, and they all say free), nothing to subscribe to. It’s perhaps not entirely friendly to someone completely new, but if you know the basics, then you shouldn’t have too many problems.

I’ll say something now, which you may not want to hear, but it’s the truth, and telling you otherwise would only stifle your learning. What you have so far isn’t perfect or anywhere close. The general forms are wrong I’d say. It would take a bit of time to explain exactly what’s wrong, but generally, the anatomy of the face isn’t correct.

Something you need to be able to do when modelling a head is to step away from your front and side references, and trust your gut a little bit. A very basic understanding of anatomy will allow for you to do that. You don’t have to be Da Vinci, but you do need to have a good idea of where bone and muscle is on the face, and understand it’s base level construction. Grab a mirror if nothing else works. You have a head. Do the forms on your model match what’s on your own face?

When you’re learning, sometimes you may have to throw away what you have an start again. It helps you to identify what you’ve done “wrong” and learn from it. Each time, you will improve.

At the very least, I’d say look at the videos I sent, and look at other peoples work to see what their workflow is like. It really does help. If you don’t want to start again, you don’t have to. It’s entirely up to you :slight_smile:

I’d also say that opening a project in the WIP section of this site may be helpful too, as more people will likely be able to offer input.

2 Likes

Ok ill take your challenge. Does the sequence of which I complete the head matter? Like these videos start with the eyeball and I wanted to know what parts of the head do I complete first? Ive in the past started with the nose and than the yes but they were separate mesh and than I eventually joined them.

Thanks,

Generally speaking, it doesn’t really matter, because you’re just blocking in the basic shapes initially. But for the sake of learning, I’d follow along with the video as best you can, and do it in that order.

Good luck! :slight_smile:

Ok so i finished the eyeball tutorial. The next one is background images. How do you suggest I go about finding the right sized images. I am looking for a front view, and right side view of Joe Rogan. I have looked around online with not much luck. Front view is easy to find but side views are not of the same size as the front view.

Thanks,

Normally that process is done with sculpting tools. Base model > Sculpt > Retopology > Texturing. You’re trying to begin from the middle, it’s not wrong but you will find very difficult to create a head shape. Some artist even begin from a skull mesh. 3D sculpting it’s not my thing but there’s a lot of videos and tutorials online, check it out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkato1BPFxA

As far as references go, you can try pinterest aswell as google images. But often when modelling celebrities, you won’t always get perfect front and side images. Sometimes you have to settle for ‘close enough’ and fill in some of the blanks yourself, and rely on observation. (That’s where lots of references come in).

For learning purposes, I’d say just get something that’s close enough, or even find someone that looks similar honestly. At this stage, I think the focus should be learning on how first, without necessarily being too focused on achieving a perfect likeness.

This is a really good set of tutorials. Appreciate your help!

Thanks,

It reminds me of how I learned to model. Literally the first head I modeled, I started with one polygon, carefully extruded and filled polygons until I had the lips, then worked from there…

Like lucas.coutin says, start with sculpting and then retopologize. There’s really no reason these days to do it with ‘old-fashioned’ modeling like box modeling, at least not for something organic like a character.
Good luck!