Might do some more stuff with this in the future, but for now I’m calling this finished.
edit: changed the eyes. they were very white before which looked odd as they looked like young eyes in an old person.
edit: tweaked it again, just can’t leave it alone…
Edit: animation link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VswF3TrwHIg
Pretty cool details awesome
amazing detail and style. materials and textures are perfect. 5 stars from me! this belongs in the gallery.
Awesome job! amazing detail, I can see a lot of effort has gone into this.
from me.
Oh I love it !!! This makes me jealous. In a good way. This is one great portrait. Could we have some more renders, its too small. Or tell us some more, your workflow etc. Beautiful again !!! Great sculpture too, great shapes.
One of the first themes I’ve tried in blender as a newbie, now you make me want to try again.
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=162160
Thanks guys, really appreciated.
Cheers M
I’ve rendered a larger image. I didn’t do one before because I’m only using a little netbook so it takes a good while to render. Anyway its attached to the first post.
Regarding the workflow. I’ve attached a couple of links below which show the model as a work in progress. I think generally our workflow is quite similar.
I model in blender as much as I can and try and get it as complete as possible before I start adding the details with sculpting.
Then I sculpt in blender. I know zbrush is more powerful, but I can do pretty much everything I need in blender and, there is a massive advantage to sculpting in blender because you can use multires to keep the polycount low. This makes the model much more manageable.
So I sculpt by effectively layering multires. Level one and two very subtle sculpting to add layers of fat. Level three same again but add detail to some of the larger structures throat and windpipe jugular vein etc.
level 4 for larger skin wrinkles and level 5 (which is where I spent most of my time) on the fine details. Blender is a lot slower than zbrush but it you press ctrl and shift you can window areas to detail which really speeds it up. I’m sure I could have done stuff with level 6 but thats beyond the power of my little machine.
I used 3dcoat for the colour and normal map which I did as I was scultping.
Now the really cool thing is, because I’ve stayed in blender and used multires I can go back down to level 1 for rigging where I only have to deal with a model of a couple of hundred polys. 
Anyway thats about it. Hope it helps. I think what you did looked great, just a few more levels of detail.
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=170173
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=170513
Oh and here’s what makes me inspired (jealous in a good way)
That was very helpful for a newbie like me, thanks (didn’t know this ctrl+shift thing) Anyway I like zbrush, especially when sculpturing having textures on. (textures made with UV projections in blender). About multires, the problem is that you can’t have a loop cut having them enabled. Multires in zbrush is superb too. But call it a sickness, I like to finish everything in blender. The feel of volumes and light. Its impossible to preview it in zbrush (render there is a crap sorry). Lot of people have a different opinion but not me. I need some ray tracing for this. I always edit zbrush models in blender sculpture in the end, so…
I know your mama is old (so its mine -same age?) lol
You should try to place your mama in a real space, that will be interesting. Great work, really !!!
Yeah I’m thinking of putting her in space, in an astronauts helmet, with the reflection of a planet in the helmet. The title will be “73 light years.”
Sorry for my english, I was thinking of a room or something. lol
Yeah I know, but I’m serious I was already thinking of putting her in a space suit, I think it would look great. A really old astronaut. Cool juxtaposition!
That is…
AMAZING!?!?!?!!
Good work 
Awesome! Detail is phenomenal!
There’s a fair amount of detail here =D How did you manage to do the hair? It looks nicely ruffled. =)
Right place for mother :yes: I really know about what you’re talking.
Ok I’ve decided to change something. Are you allowed to do that in “finished projects”?
Hair was done with the particle mode tools. There are several strips of hair which I combed down flat onto her scalp. Then combed the roots of the hair up to create an arc of hair. Then used the “puff” tool to mess it up a bit. Finally I used a small brush to run through the hair to force it into clumps.
Hope that helps.
2
Nice lady. Looks very british somehow, not in a stiff-upper-lip way though.
The pedestal looks like plastic, and the uniform background also breaks the realism. Otherwise a very lively portrait, well done!
“Nice lady. Looks very british somehow, not in a stiff-upper-lip way though”
As tmcthree says,
"Yeah I’m thinking of putting her in space, in an astronauts helmet, with the reflection of a planet in the helmet. The title will be “73 light years.”
British or greek its the same for me, she is Mother, so I copy tmcthree here “73 light years” away. OK I’m joking… am I?
Tweaked it again. This time the change is so subtle I’m offering $1,000,000 reward to anyone who can spot the difference.*
*subject to status
