Female Head, Marlon John

# 1 04-12-2010 , 07:35 AM

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After some serious thinking and decisions, i finally decided i want to become a character modeller. So for the past week and a half i been researching on topology and a few other things. Its been roughly around 3 years since my last organic model and man it was hard to get stuck into again. Re-learning things and what not.

Feel free to comment and crit as much as you like user added image

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Cheers, MJ

Last edited by marlonjohn; 04-07-2011 at 03:44 PM.

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# 2 04-12-2010 , 07:38 AM

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Decided to start using some references to help me out as i was stuck with bad proportion. Topology looks alright for now, but i need to work on the mouth and nose a fair bit. What do you think so far?

Last edited by marlonjohn; 04-07-2011 at 03:44 PM.

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# 3 04-12-2010 , 10:28 AM

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Marlon John

nice to know you are seriously thinking about doing this. Just a word of warning, dont pigeon hole yourself as 'just' a character modeller. Sometimes it will go against you and you'll lose out on work when you know you 'could have made that tank' or could have made an alien smoking, sitting in that pick up truck, so my advice would be become a modeller not just a certain type. Believe me Ive been there. I can now say that Im in a better position work wise because I model in every aspect from from organics to hard surface - though I still prefer my character stuff at the end of the day - LOL

Aslo how realistic is this going to be - this is another area to think about, the more realistic the harder it will be to achieve and people will be looking extra hard to catch it all out if they feel its wrong. Sometimes less is always more, so maybe use real world proportions but do something stylised to get you going.

The model you've started is pretty good seeing as though you've not done any like this for a while. My first thoughts are really why do female model?? As your name to me suggests you are a guy, I would really have started out by modelling a male head based on myself. My reason for saying this is because you have all the references and angles you need right in front of a mirror. I know we are all a little partial to making a female model but seriously, the female face is designed alot differently in a few areas to a guys especially around the eyes and mouth so make it easier on yourself until you have re-familarised yourself again.

I know this is a work in progress, but theres only so much you can get from image planes before you need to look for different angles to acetain other forms and how one set of muscles fit to the next. For example the corners of the mouth where they meet the cheeks is very flat right up to the cheek bones, there should be more form there. Have a look at the attached image, look at the silohuette down that far side of the face. Everything has form and is not just flat.

Have a look in the topology section, theres plenty of stuff in there discussing not only geo but theres also muscle diagrams and other bits. It will help you. Understand the forms and it will make so much more difference to your model.

The nose area: mmm always tricky. I would lower the lower edges from the base of the tearduct down the nose a bit more as the topo is a little uneven there, try and square it up. The loop in the middle of the nose bridge can come up a little too, this will allow you to even out the topo on the front of the nose. If you have to cut out some loops on the nose so you get a cleare picture of what its all doing, block it all out even if its very rough to see where you can add later on. the corner of the nostril around to the cheeks (nasalabial folds) need a bit more form too, make the mesh flow as if it were muscle under the skin, this is why edgelooping is important, they are actually a representation of the the underlying muscles, hence the reason for have good edgeloops for facial animation.

anyway thats enough from me for now, I'll give some else a chance

keep going
Jay

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# 4 05-12-2010 , 05:41 PM

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I just wanted to say that I think that's some really good advice from Jay. I draw a lot and I find it so much more difficult to get a male characters to come out right, female characteristics have a tendency to sneak their way into the face especially. Also understanding anatomy is really important when you're trying to create movement in 2d or 3d, if you know which muscle groups contribute to a specific gesture it makes it much easier to recreate it and also if these muscles are defined on a character model it becomes much more realistic.

I look at a lot of galleries and I've noticed a tendency amongst modelers, who are mainly male, to get female characters that have strangely shaped breasts (find this weird as men tend to focus a lot on this area in the real world user added image

) and a lot of masculinity in the areas of the chin, cheeks and eyebrows. So places to watch out for!

Looks like you're off to a good start on that model though. As Jay mentioned as well the more realistic and high poly you take a model the more you open yourself up to criticism and the more complicated it gets to keep the topology clean. If you haven't done a lot of character modeling it might be a good idea to start of with something that's not too involving like a stylized cartoon, and once you've nailed the topology move on to a more detailed and realistic model.
Nilla

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# 5 06-12-2010 , 07:09 AM

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@ Jay

Hey Jay!

Yeah i understand totally. The reason behind me saying a specific type of modeller was because i never really had a path i wanted to go in. And this was a disaster as i would start a environment project, and by the next day i would start something else. So i want to try something different which i enjoyed which ended up being characters.

Never really gave it a thought about how realistic i wanted it to be honest. I mean i would like to model it as realistic as possible but as you mentioned, its hard. Maybe to the point where i am really satisfied and ill finish it off with some good textures and shaders. Hopefully anyway haha. About the style, i am thinking more of the lines of a Team Fortress character look. But ill see what happens anyway.

Cheers man, i been trying real hard. And about why i chose a female model, believe it or not it was because the first 'good' reference i found was a female haha. Yeah i never realized at the time but your right about variation in detail in areas... I guess my next model shall be a male user added image

Thats one thing i started doing, looking at difference references to determine how much muscle/fat was there. I think i may have exaggerated a little on how deep it was as looking at it now, the model looks as if shes sucking in her cheeks... Yeah i been analyzing information from both topology section on simplymaya and also the one that stahlberg did a few years back. Some pretty interesting things.

Yeah i am gonna try lower the edge-loop count on the nose and rework it all. I think i added to much at the start and suffered. That is another thing i gotta do, fix the topology around it as it doesn't flow like normal muscles would as you mentioned.

P.S. Funny enough i was hoping you would reply to the thread as i knew you would give me some really good tips on things and plus, you are the man when it comes to character modelling haha! user added image

Big thanks again dude user added image

Marlon

Last edited by marlonjohn; 06-12-2010 at 07:14 AM.

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# 6 06-12-2010 , 07:13 AM

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@ Nilla

Yeah i am starting to look at more anatomy pictures more often to try absorb as much as i can to help me out with my modelling.

Hahaha! You are totally right there. The only person i know of who could pull the breasts off are Steven Stalhberg. He must of seen a fair few in his time to get it them perfect. user added image

I shall keep a reminder of that. user added image

Thanks alot Nilla. Yeah i finally understand once i start pushing it, its gonna get alot more harder from there. I have modelled a few heads but this was a fair while ago. Eventually i want to start modelling stylized cartoons, but i wont attempt it just yet as i am not confident enough with my overall topology.

Thanks for the comment and crit aswell user added image

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# 7 07-12-2010 , 03:49 AM

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Small bit of progress. Definitely liking the flow of the nose now. Still needs a bit more tweaking though.

.................................... After: .................................................. ..........................Before:

user added image

Last edited by marlonjohn; 07-12-2010 at 03:52 AM.

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# 8 07-12-2010 , 09:48 AM

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muuuuuch better. You'll find you'll have better control over the mesh too.

J

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# 9 17-12-2010 , 10:04 AM

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Mainly just been tweaking a lot of verts and re-did the lips as there was some stretching on the ends. Im actually pretty stoked that when i convert it to subdiv it looks pretty decent instead of crappy user added image

Still gotta work on ears, eyebrow structure and under the neck. Any crits on anything else? cheers!

Last edited by marlonjohn; 04-07-2011 at 03:44 PM.

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# 10 18-12-2010 , 04:37 AM

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Started the ears today... fairly happy with the way they turned out so far...

Last edited by marlonjohn; 04-07-2011 at 03:44 PM.

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# 11 18-12-2010 , 05:03 AM

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Looks nice to me, I really like the way the nose came out and the transition onto the upper lip. You still need eyelids, but I guess that's done all together when you work on the eyebrow area. Should be a good model when you get a bit further, fun to follow user added image

Nilla

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# 12 18-12-2010 , 10:56 AM

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I think you need to go up a level of detail. The area around the eyes looks pretty odd. Its quite hard to tell anything with just the 3/4 position. Some orthographic shots would help.

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# 13 18-12-2010 , 02:24 PM

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Have a look through the models in resources as well, you might find something that will show you how the topology would flow that could help you a bit on the eye area. I haven't had time to go through it, but there's a few really good models in there for sure.

https://simplymaya.com/maya-resources-free-downloads/

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# 14 19-12-2010 , 05:43 AM

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Well Marlon, I'm attempting to learn vicariously through your progress..Keep it up user added image

...I'm finding this thread interesting as i soon plan to start working on a Female model, years of hard surface modeling dictate that its time i at least work on organics occasionally.

G-man

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# 15 02-01-2011 , 02:51 PM

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@ Nilla

Thanks Nilla, Me too user added image

Also i went and checked some of the resources. Found one which was really good, glad you mentioned it.

@ honestdom

Yeah i know what your getting at about the eyes. They don't have any real depth above the eye. Once i quickly stitch up the ears to the head just for kicks, ill render a 360 view and post user added image

@ G-Man

Cheers man! Haha i get whatcha mean. Get ready for the challenges. Sometimes i feel like pulling my hair out literally. PM me once you start yours, so i can check it out user added image

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Female Head, Marlon John

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