Working on recreating a character from one of my novels(which I never finished.) I number it in decimal versions. This is version 5:
I’m not sure where I’ll go with this once I finish the head. I might go on to make an entire 3D character, but I’m not sure if I’m willing to commit that much time to this yet.
I thought about posting this is Focused Critique, since it needs a lot of that, but I decided WIP was more fitting for now. I might post in FC once I’m almost done. Please do give critique, and don’t feel bad about sounding mean/harsh. It’s better for me to come away having learned something than having my petty little pride un-trampled.
Rendering internally right now. I prefer Cycles, but it doesn’t do non-converted hair, which will be a major problem if I ever decide to animate/simulate this mesh.
I think you should focus on modeling before materials. You have a long way to go imho.
the eyes are too far apart. Most people’s heads are approximately five eyes wide, so there is one eye-width in the middle, and one eye-width on each side of the eyes.
the eyelids are almost non-existent. Depending on the race of the character you need creases above the eyelid, and likely below. It seems like the eyes should be deeper into the head as well.
there doesn’t appear to be any philtrum (the depression above the lips).
A reference photo would help a lot. Since you’re working on a character you made up, you probably don’t want to base her completely on a reference, but here’s what you can do (it worked for me in a similar situation): Find pictures of people who have characteristics you want in your model. It’s hard to find a picture that looks exactly like what you want, but finding a picture of someone with the same jawline, or the same hair, or the same nose is easy.
For right now, I’d focus on her mouth and eyes. Also, some screenshots that show her topology would help us give better advice. (Go into edit mode, select solid rendering, and edge select)
Tbh, I think she has potential, but she doesn’t look natural right now. The closer you can bring her to an “average human”, the better. (Beauty is largely based on “looking average” anyways - blend pictures of 10 ugly people, and you’ve got a reasonably attractive person) I had to do this with my first character - I had focused too much on how I wanted the character to look a certain way, and she ended up looking very unnatural.
I hope I haven’t been to harsh in my criticism… I’m just trying to help out.
Oh wow, I wish I could have gotten this much critique back when I was working on this mesh. I have since scrapped it and started over. The project was abandoned for awhile, but I have recently been thinking about having another go at it. Don’t think your critique has gone to waste though, as I’ll be keeping all of it in mind for my next attempt. I have an animation project to finish before I jump back on this one though. This thread is actually my second of three meshes shooting for this goal. Each has been better than the last, so let’s hope that continues.
I agree that one of the biggest mistakes was likely dumping my ref images way too early on. Once I had a generic quasi-human shape, I started using only my memory and imagination.
Yeah, don’t give up!! It just takes practice, and a lot of editing. If you want to make your own topology, I suggest doing only half of her head, and using a mirror modifier to save time. (At least to start off) These tutorials might help: http://cgcookie.com/blender/series/female-modeling-series/
You can also try MakeHuman. It’s what I use, and it’s not great for getting a model that looks exactly like you want, but it’s great for making a general human topology that you can edit in Blender. Just make sure to join all the meshes when you import, remove all vertex duplicates, and recalculate normals.
