Pure Blender 2.44.
RobertT
How many faces have you done RobertT?
It looks nice and all but I could’ve known I’ve seen a stone face like this from you 10 other times.
At least it’s a nice material, but seeing many of your pieces similar to this I get a feeling of Deja-vu.
Woot, I am the second poster! Just a question, is this a “sculpture” or some mold of a person who left? To me it seems like a sculpture, but if so, why is it hollow? The mouth has depth inside of it, while the eyes seem hollow and with no depth, kind of looks weird compared to the mouth, but that may just be your style. I like the concept of it though and those small little worm hole looking things!. 4 stars
Cyborg Dragon: Many faces, but I’m not counting. I never count. I have hundreds yet to make, all for different reasons, but it’s not about the quantity. I have certain ideas I hope to pursue and express. I do plan to return to previous themes with new knowledge and techniques. Just because I might have done something in the past does not preclude me from doing it in the future, either with fresh intents or refinements in mind. That is part of me trying to grow as an artist. Of course this project is not just a face, and the concepts behind this are unique to this project 
spiffyandy: Thanks, spiffyandy! This was sculpted (but not intended to be just a sculpture). For me it’s about, well the title almost says it all 
The eyes are cavernous and hollowed. Much of the left side of the face is no longer there.
I should mention, this was kept to around 700k verts.
RobertT
Well it does look like it is hollowed to an extent, but, wouldn’t there be some more… something in there? I don’t know, but those eyes for some reason looks like someone went into paint and put some black where the eyes were. Maybe I am just not seeing something here.
I can tell your intentions wasn’t to rehash a previous work, and I can tell you have different reasons for the 100’s you have yet to make, I just personally find human faces boring after they’re done like 50 times.
spiffyandy: To get the look I wanted I used black spheres set further in (partly visible if you play with levels in this) to darken that area. Gutted might be more appropriate a word than hollowed, as one aspect of this work, on a personal level, has to do something to do with metaphors of cancer and survival.
RobertT
I thought something like that was up with this picture, as I do know about the ill effects about cancer, and yet the strength of those who still perservere(sp) through it. But seeing the light upon the face, makes me still confused about the lack of any sight within it even though I am guessing this is what you aimed for. I guess it is mostly the right eye that is bothering me. I very quickly made a photo of what I am trying to get at. But I shall probably let this rest after the next post. Just to keep things clear, I am not trying to insult your work, just trying to understand it more.
Anywho, here is the link to my 5 second paintbrush attack. http://www.box.net/shared/61npj4z0oy
Cyborg Dragon: Thanks for understanding. Long ago, before I made art study a major part of my life, I suppose I might have felt comparably about painters occupied with landscapes or photographers with portraits before I knew better. For me what helped quite a bit was learning to find what made things different and individually appreciable. This is an essential aspect of not only art but life, to be able to detect, respect, and appreciate diversity and subtleties even in the midst of what appears to be homogeneity and repetitive structures. Most fractals might look indistinguishable to someone not attuned to how they are made (more specifically, how their algorithms may differ) and how they can change over iterations. Some fossils can pass for rocks, one symphony can sound like another, and when we look up at the sky at night and see stars they all might look exactly the same, but they exist at different distances, times, and intensities, different types of stars, some perhaps not even there any more as we are staring into the past. Generally speaking, pattern recognition can be great, but sometimes humans can lump things together prematurely, or erroneously, and miss out on some very important nuances. Memory can be just as misinforming, since just a few similarities detected can make us believe we’ve seen something before. We never really know until we look closer, more intently, and learn to look not just with our eyes but with our mind and apply some knowledge, imagination, and personal insight to the situation Well, just some thoughts I thought could help. Take care, CD!
RobertT
spiffyandy: I see what you are saying I will say there was thinking along the lines of “gouge my eyes, but still I see.” Thanks again for your interest!
RobertT
Personally I’d like to applaud RobertT for another exceptionally well-done piece of art. It’s not often that I comment on pieces in the finished projects section, but this image struck me on an emotional level.
Now on to the more technical aspects:
The lighting is good, but I think the tip of the nose lacks some contrast compared to the rest of the face. It is very hard to see where the nose ends and the cheek starts (on the left side).
Composition is solid. Not too much empty space, but leaving just enough space to prevent it from being crammed. The eyes make for good focal points which suck the viewer into the image and give a resting place in an image that might otherwise be too busy (mainly because of the material). Currently it’s nicely balanced.
Which brings me to the materials, which are in my opinion top-notch. Good colours making for a very atmospheric (perhaps not the right word for it, in the context you described, but I blame my English for that) image.
Use of the sculpt tools goes without saying: excellent.
Some small points I’d like to mention that I immensely enjoyed were the subtle depth-of-field effect and the clouds in the background. The dof effect greatly increases the depth in the image and the clouds break up an otherwise homogenous black background, to great effect.
Concluding I’d like to express my wish to see more works like this coming from you RobertT. The style going on in this image is something I highly enjoy.
Bart Crouch
Looks sweet RobertT. Love your color choice as always. The image definately has emotion in it. Love your textures too.
Although this has become somewhat of a cliché with you, I’m starting to see different levels of detail in this picture…
Looks cool, and I’m getting some symbolism vibes, but it doesn’t have any emotional effect for me.
Ok, after 5 minutes of staring at this I believe this head has been mummified then thrown into the ocean for several thousand years and turned to fossilized coral.
That would explain the little holes everywhere, symptomatic with fossilized coral.
Whatever, maybe I just looked at it for too long, wondering if I could find a logical explanation for it’s existence.
Looks good.
m.a.
“Still standing” is a fascinating title for this piece of work. Interesting contrast to your other type of pictures. This one is pretty clean and simple. Black background, smokey sky, and the face. You even could have named this something like “Man and the sky” or “Dust of battle” or something like this.
The picture somewhat unfolds if you look at the eyes of this man. They are not there. No eyes, just black holes. So what happened? The eyes are the mirror of the soul, they say. Does it mean he lost his soul?
When looking at his face I see the face of a broken warrior. Fought so many fights. Not fights with a sword, but fights with life itself. And somehow he managed to survive until today. He might not know /how/ he survived, but he survived. He is still standing. Life didn’t manage to get him down on his knees. But at what price? He lost himself. And after all that he is through he comes to realize exactly this: He might still be standing, but there is no difference any more for him between “still standing” and “lying on the floor”. Somehow he is already dead, not knowing it.
The scars remain…
Yt,
Gunnar
It looks pretty nice. But as blenditall has already stated, it doesn’t hold any emotion for me. It is, just a stone face. It’s nicely done, don’t get me wrong. But you can’t really look at for very long, because theres not much to look at. It does resemble a face definitely. And the way you’ve incorporated stone into it is an achievement, especially with texturing being one of the most painfully annoying things when it comes to 3d. But, it needs something else.
Some more colour would be nice. As would a purpose to the piece. What is he looking at? Is he happy or sad? All we have is a title and a plain rock face.
I notice lots of other people really enjoy it. So maybe I’m being to picky. It’s interesting how different people view art.
Also I lol’d at CDs comment. Deja vu indeed CD
Crouch: Thank you very much for the excellent and encouraging feedback. I am grateful to hear how these works can connect with and be appreciated by others, especially a creation as personal as this was to share.
Friday13: Thanks! The history of Pompeii is indeed an interesting one and one that can even connect somewhat, in several respects, to this image.
Crititrozoz: Thank you, Crititrozoz. I’m glad to hear some emotion can be felt. I didn’t want it to be painfully obvious.
blenditall: Thanks for the feedback, blenditall. Yes, faces will always be a part of what I do, but they will never just be faces. I create what I must
Meta-Androcto: Interesting comments! Thanks for them!
gunnarstahl: I cannot thank you enough for that great and thoughtful post. You have come very close in several of your comments to a number of actual thoughts inspiring this creation to come into being.
redbyte: Thanks for the comments! Without getting into the very personal aspects of the inspirations, I will just say there are some major purposes and emotions in this piece for me, none of which I felt the need to spell out in this work. Generally speaking, though, we do tend to see only what we see when we look just with our eyes. I completely agree on how very interesting it can be to hear how each person reacts individually to a piece It’s the main reason I post these images, along with the chance even to receive new insight. gunnarstahl’s response was especially helpful to me and representative of the level I wish more people would attempt to engage my more serious pieces – and by helpful I mean that I was also shown some really powerful alternate meanings that make the work even more interesting and multifaceted to me when viewing it from that perspective. It’s such a great feeling
RobertT
Very. But also how different your art is. Of course there is always this Robert-ish look to your work, and that’s great of course, but you have a wild variety of things you’ve made so far, really impressive. I don’t find this one being among your best ones, but at least it’s recognizable as a Robert Tiess peace, and that sure counts for something.
I must say I really like the subtle background in it, gives the feeling of a dark cold night with ominous things this stone fella has to bear.
Best wishes and good night.
I think that your work and your skills have reached a level that makes it more or less useless to criticize it on a mere technical level. Whenever I see a picture of you and read the title you give to your picture I try to figure out what the meaning is you placed in your picture. How the title connects to the picture. And while looking at the picture all these little tiny bits and pieces of ideas, emotions, thoughts -the things that you eagerly tried to place into the picture- start to float in. It seems that you try to place parts of your personality into a picture And these are the things that I try to write down. Yt, Gunnar