Study of the face - incorporating proportions and structure

[Dave Black]

I took the liberty of doing a quick paintover of your character using the caucasian beauty mask/canon that researchers have developed to isolate what humans consider attractive. I did this so that we can note where you've departed from the "norm", and moved into a place of unique character. I am unsure if the camera is non-orthographic, or if the character is asymetrical(which it appears to be). I have therefore cut the frontal view of the face in half and mirrored it to better identify certain attributes.

http://www.3dzealot.com/cgtalk_helpdesk/BeautyMask_Overlay.jpg

From the looks of it, you're pretty much dead-on. The face is in proportion, ie, all the parts that make up the whole are properly alligned and sized in relation to one-another. Without reference, no-doubt. Good eye.

Your use of fatty tissues has worked very well, and I truely do feel this character is alive. A set of ears would obviously help to further sell the overall look, but I'm sure that will come later.

My crits are based mostly around two areas. The skull is a bit too wide to really sell the character. While human proportions do in fact vary greatly, the skull width is a bit too much to fit within the envelope of what is human.

The second area that my eye is draw to is the nose. While the overall shape and proportions are great, I feel that it seems too stuck-on. I feel as though the fatty tissues on this guy's face would lend to a less defined connection to the face. I'd simply soften the areas where the nose joins the face. I believe the texture is a bit lacking in detail in relation to the surrounding areas, which really seems to make it jump out more. It's almost as if it's a prostetic nose.

Other than what's mentioned above, I cannot find issue with this piece. It is truley a work of great craftsmanship, and I do hope you will keep us posted with updates. You have indeed succeeded in your mission to capture the soul of a fictional character.

EDIT: In the future, when posting in this particular forum, you should include a shaded wireframe of the object or composition in which you are asking for critique. This will allow all of us to better help you topographically. I am unaware of ZBrush's mesh creation, so it may not even be possible. It is however a rule, and we like to enforce it as much as possible.

-3DZ

[kpalazov]

Thankyou 3DZealot , what a constructive and well thought out critique. I have found it both an interesting and highly helpful read and will most definently post my progress as a result of your comments.

I would also like to thankyou for introducing me to a new way of thinking towards my work, in the way of using a beauty mask as a guide to facial proportions and features.

Secondly I would like to apologies for the exlusion of the 3d mesh . Modelling in zbrush is unlike the majority of methods employed in other applications and as a result the mesh really does not hold any purposeful information about the models underlying strcuture. However as requested I have prepared this image of my models mesh.
http://www.redrival.com/kircho/mesh.jpg

I would also like to mention for those intersted that this model is not rendered with any textures what so ever precedural or painted. A simple shader controls the highlights and skin bump.

My sincere thanks for your time and efforts 3dZealot

Kiril

[keight]

My only comment is that the character's eyes' color is so close to the skin tones and lacks so much contrast that one gets the feeling that the figure is blind. By "simply" allowing the white of the eyes to show, adding the pupils and normal light reflection off of what is a very shiny, wet, surface, the face will have more life. There is no need to change the eyes' iris color.

[gmask]

Yes this work does have a certain uncanny realism to it.. I also think that the coloration of the eyes is to similair that that of the skin.. As for the thickness of the head.. I dunno it could be okay.. I'd have to see him with ears.

The mesh looks incredibly dense.. to a level that would seem to be impractical to work with. Why some many faces?

[kpalazov]

Thanks for the crits gmask and keight most appricated. The reason why the eye look very close to the skin color is becuase they actually are. I am still learning zbrush and only after I had rendered the image did I understand how to keep proper eye color and material.

As to the question about mesh density. Well I simply like to have alot of control over details . The other unfluence on mesh density is the way you model with zbrush. It can be likened to modelling with clay. You don't work by defining edge loops or moving edges and points one at a time but rather work on group of them to form the desired form and details. Becuase lets say, I can't extrude a polygon to make the nose or extrude or cut the notril holes out, more mesh density is required to create these type of effects.Howerver to compensate for this lack of control modelling in zbrush is very fast. At 100k polies I have no problem with interaction with my models. As you go higher there is a slow down but its only marginal and work is still possible at resolutions of up to but not over 250K polies. In the next version of zbrush we will have support for millions of polies with fluid interaction.

Animating these meshes is a whole different story and I will not go into it.....I will say though that in the end of the processes you have in most cases better interaction with your models then you do normally.

thanks once again

Kiril

[kpalazov]

update
http://www.redrival.com/kircho/updated.jpg

but nose is off in this one I will update again, I just wanted to get some feedback on the update. Also this time I have inluded the side view.

[Beholder]

3DZealot, Where might I find more information on this research developed beauty mask? I'm googling and failing.

[Dave Black]

The official site for this research is here:

http://www.beautyanalysis.com/index2_mba.htm

Sorry to get back with you late, but I had to do some digging around to find the link. Hope that helps. Neat read too.

kpalazov: Look'n killer. Now that I've seen the side view, I can say the nose sticks our too far from the face. Pull it in a bit. Even for a large bulbous nose, it's huge. Well modeled, but huge. Just give it a try and see if it helps.

Also, any plans for ears? ;)

From the density of the mesh I can only imagine that modeling the ears is going to be tricky. I've never really seen Zbrush output this sort of thing. It's increadibly interesting. You also deserve a prize for actually attempting to learn that interface. :D

Keep those updates coming!

-3DZ

:D

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