Head model Progress

I've been working on the head model. One thing that I was constantly aware of was the topology. It wasn't that great, and certainly wouldn't be much better for deformation. I was trying something new with it, and I now know that that topology really isn't too great. So I spent a good portion of todays modelling just retopologizing the head completely.

I spoke to Phil today and he helped me a lot. We spoke for a very long time about how i've been struggling recently with my modelling and my anatomy knowledge. How it's been getting me down, and to be quite honest, I've been wondering if I've really got what it takes to get into the industry as a character artist. After speaking to him about a number of things, I began to realise my flaws and problems. I was simply sitting there pulling and pushing verts for hours, not really knowing why, or even what I wanted to achieve for that matter. It seems silly, but I really wasn't aware of it at the time. So I came home and decided to work on this head, but this time, I wanted to know WHY I was moving every single vert. So I went ahead with that in mind. Now the head model is still not quite there yet, but as it's the end of the day I like to make a post with updates. So here are the screen shots.


I have to say, I'm quite proud of this so far, the topology just feels right now. It certainly should be animatable and fine for deformation. Here are the problem areas for me to resolve now though. The cheeks, I want them to feel more 'puffy' to give her a very cute feel. The eyes, they need more loops and more work and attention, especially the upper lid so that she can blink properly. The mouth needs to be more fuller and sexier. Right now she feels very sad, I heard somewhere that a standard face pre blendshapes and rigging should simply look bored (woops, I heard this from Pol, and he read it in a book entitled ' stop staring '). So I'm in a similar ball park, just some tweaks here and there. I decided to go ahead and model with her mouth open. It's very messy trying to model a character mouth closed, there are many verts in the corner of the mouth, and they just stack on top of each other in that scenario. So I'll close it once I am done. I'm sure there are more things that need fixing, and once I sleep I'll be in a more better position to judge that.

Any way, if you compare to the screens from a couple of days ago, you can see HUGE progress has been made. I can only thank Phil for the time today, some of the subjects we hit on really helped me. You continue to help me improve myself, thanks again!

Time for sleep :)


I've just noticed how boring some of these latest blog titles are becoming. "Minor updates" all the time. Bah, I'll try and make them more interesting for you guys!