Started this sculpt of the actor Martin Sheen as Captain Willard from Apocalypse Now last week, and I while I’ve made decent progress, I wouldn’t mind a bit of critique. I’m approaching the point where sculpting seems like one step forward, two steps back in the sense that I’m getting blind as to what I need to work on next.
I feel like the resemblance from the front is slowly getting there, but then the side view doesn’t look good at all. Big problem is that I’ve not been able to find very good references for the profile, mainly some screengrabs.
I started the project by sculpting the main planes of the head using Kent Trammell’s formula from the (really fantastic) Human tutorial, but despite quite a bit of work, my sculpt seems to have slightly too long of a head maybe.
Does Martin just have somewhat of a flat skull, or is that caused by lens distortion?
Anyways, any and all critique is appreciated. Like I said, I think I need some fresh eyes on this 
2 Likes
Nice start so far. I know for me, the longer I stare at something, the less I can see. So here is a fresh set of eyes:
- The brow line needs to be flatter. You can see in the first set of images that the brow comes out from the center with a slight incline until it reaches the side of the forehead. Then it dips a little as it wraps around.
- The neck is too wide, mostly on the side view, a little in the front view. The sternocleidomastoid is too fat, and it should head towards the center where it meets the clavicle.
- The ear could come forward a bit, and have the jawline start in front of that. The jawline drops down, then swoops forward, and has a small flat spot underneath the chin. You can see this in the last picture, bottom left image.
- The lips could be moved down slightly. His upper lip, (from the nose down) needs to be longer, and it arcs outward before it reaches the mouth. The whole upper lip area bulges a little as it wraps around the face to where it meets the node at the side of the mouth. This upper lip mass is directing the smile line towards the back of the face, rather than straight down. Again, this can be seen in the bottom image. There should be more of a notch between the lips in this view also. I think you’ve undercut the bottom lip too much. There is an odd groove just below the lip. Either fill this in, or taper the area below to make this transition smoother.
- The top of the forehead could be widened.
Anyways, hope this helps. Keep at it.
2 Likes
Thanks! Good advice, worked on the sculpt a bit more. Also spent half a day on the hair using Blender’s new hair tools, super easy to get started and luckily capt Willard’s hair is a bit of a mess during most of the film.
I think the likeness is pretty soon as good as I can make it, so time to move towards tertiary details and texturing.
(of course, the sculpt and likeness could still be improved, so any tips or advice appreciated 
)
