Need Suggestions with Facial Features

[Proflooney]

Guys I am trying to work on a project, but am having trouble getting the facial features right. I basically am doing an action model for photorealistic render if I ever get it figured out.

Right now I am wanting to give my model the face of Lucy Liu. I guess the first thing to do is to post where I am at and then give a description of what I see looking at the reference and then hopefully someone can steer me into the correct direction and to show where i am wrong. I am not an artist like I have said before in other threads, just an old guy wanting to learn and to create for myself and family.

So breakdown on the pics.

First pic is poly layout of the full body and second is a closeup of the face geometry.

Then one of my better ref pics as it is a head on view. The final pic is what the subdivided model looks like at this point.

Joe

[Proflooney]

Ok my notices.

1: She is part Asian and her eyes are slightly slanted upwards.

2. the inner corners of the eyes have a little curve downwards.

3. the bottom eyelid seems to run in a fairly straight line across and the upper eyelid has a fairly decent hump to it.

4. Lucy has a distinguishing eyeball layout. basically i don't know what you call it, lazy eye, crazy eye, or whatever, but her eyeballs aren't symmetrical in that one eye seems to fall behind the other.

5. She has arched eyebrows.

6. her lower lip has a droop to the center of the lip in that the center of the lower lip is fairly wide. the upper lip kinda humps upwards slightly.

7. she has fairly prominent cheekbones.

8. her chin is not really wide but it doesnt come in to a tight point but is small with a nice flow to it.

those are what I see when I look at the ref pics. Am I wrong somewhere.

joe

[Proflooney]

Here is a shot of her face at another angle

[Crispy4004]

Well to start, you're going to have a hard time getting that muzzle cheek crease right without it represented properly in the edge flow. With the current edgeflow, it's going to want to start on the bottom outside of the nostril, which too low. Just look a the picture.

I suggest going back and fixing it otherwise the region will always look a little wonky, and surely will never animate right.

[Proflooney]

so basically your saying I need to bring it up to the other side of the nose bulb instead of at the bottom of it. ie put it at top not bottom?

Joe

[Proflooney]

I just looked at your portfolio really nice stuff. I am thinking you think the edgeflow should be more like the edge flow you have on you head with the polys showing

[Crispy4004]

Thanks for the compliment. I'm referring to the yellow loop in this reference:

http://media.photobucket.com/image/e.../EdgeLoop1.jpg

It gets overlooked pretty often, but it's very important to help you get that crease correct.

[Proflooney]

great now I have to figure a way to get it into my face lol. it takes me a week just to do the face lol im not a good modeller but can sculpt fairly well once I get the base started. thats why I been trying to get me a good female base made that I can just reuse. I got a fairly decent male and can get this one to subdivide to almost 6 mil polys so I can get all kinds of detail in there. oh well maybe after I get some more features sculpted i will use something like 3d coat to retopo it since the polys supposed to stick to your surface so shouldnt have to redo much.

btw I like the gal you did and looked at what topo i could see easily and i see what you did and also see how the face edgeloop you talking abt works from that link. I grabbed it up and saved it and did a screenshot of mine and marked that loop in. right now not too worried abt the animation part I just want to get the sculpting down. I only been doing this abt 2 months now and have yet to be able to get any decent clothes made so all my models run around nekkid lol and winters coming on )))

Joe

PS thanks tons for the help

[Proflooney]

heres the areas I worked

1: Of course the first and most important feature of lucy is her eyes. I spent a lot of time (cause im not very good so im slow) at working them and then adding the puffiness she has under them. (seen better in all the other ref i have)

2. Raised the jawline as it was just a base and was laying pretty flat. I then did a little more definition on it but not much yet as I am still working in subdivision levels 1 and 2 and just use higher for posting so its smoother and easier to see the overall.

3. she has really round full cheeks so I puffed them out more and refined the nose area.

4. Her lips needed work so I puffed them out some making them fuller and adding a little definition around the lips.

5. worked just slightly on her brow area.

I think I am narrowing her down and not being an artist doubt I could get a nice realistic look , but want to get it as close as possible and will keep working it til I get to the point i think I cant get it any closer.

I need to work some on the body too once I get the face close then get her posed before I totally finish the facial features and start adding wrinkles etc as I will have to adjust her expression to the pose.

thanks for your input it helps tremendously.

Joe

[Proflooney]

ok I did some more adjustments this morning.

1: I adjusted the brow giving it a little more arch and inflated the outer underneath part of the brow.

2: I removed her upper eyelid

3: I refined her nose ridge a wee bit

4: brought in the sides of her jaw a little more

5: few other tweeks here and there

[cjr_danes]

I am a self-teaching novice amateur, also. I started learning, to better understand what my husband does. I stick with sculpting in zBrush for now. All my rubbery little mud-people are nekkid, too. And hairless.

I was wondering if you had a good profile shot. Is this helpful?



Do you use reference planes? I find them very helpful.

[Proflooney]

awesome

no i couldnt ever find a good profile view only every other view but no profile.

yer hubby sure is lucky to have you around )))

Joe

[Proflooney]

well i spent half the day im 3DS Max retopoing the head to get my edge loops flowing right now to start over sculpting rofl

[spindraft]

Hey prof.

It looks like you're getting after it well enough. Your topology is looking good imho, i think you should be able to push the sculpt well enough with it. Main thing is you need more reference material. Really ought to find as many views from different angles & lighting as you possibly can, because you're not just trying to make her look right straight on, but you're trying to know/understand & depict her actual shape.

I think danes profile shot should be rather helpful, as that's where I really notice the most problems. The major thing atm is the chin and the angle of the jaw line. It is currently far too steep.

Anyway, my best suggestions is to stock up on the references, and keep the sculpt mesh as low res as possible for as long as possible. This will help force you to focus on getting the primary forms correct before moving on (it can be easy to get lost in the woods so to speak if you subdivide too early).

[Proflooney]

thanks I have abt 50 photos but was missing the profile as most are from weird angles and shes smiling in a lot of them which really pushes her cheeks out when she smiles. I am working on visualizing the anatomy of her face and I can see all the subtlties etc. My main problem is transferring from my brain to my hands lol.

my full body mesh is abt 26k polys and her head is abt 4k. I can get almost 7 mil sub d polys so I think I am at a fairly decent polycount. I have trouble if I try to go lower with the base polycounts for some reason. I guess I always try to do as much detail as I can with my base mesh. but since this isnt for a game I dont need a 6k poly figure though would love to have one for a base mesh but cest la vie.

Joe