Hi Glenn23,
great concept! :bounce:
The face is cool and the bubble is awesome.
Only one: In case the girl is actually blowing, there won’t be a surface inside the bubble ring. At least, the surface had to be concave not convex.
In sum GREAT GREAT GREAT. 
Go on and update!
I’m waiting for them:bounce:
Here’s the finished bubble, or almost finished. You can see the reflection of the child in both surfaces now.
Thanks to all.
One of my considerations when Im modeling fits in very nicely with the oneness of scale thing Im exploring in this piece. I was once a studio assistant to Chuck Close and he shared a very interesting concept with me on the difference between symbol and situation. Some people might paint or model a symbol of a human mouth say upper lip, lower lip, red, wavey top and round bottom or they might view the mouth as a situation of light and color, peaks and valleys, volume and space. I tend to work in the situation school of thought. I treat the human face as a landscape wherein the corner of the mouth is not the end of the mouth and the start of the cheek both an undulating terrain all its own. The closer you look the more you see. The further you step back the more is revealed. The scale changes but the revelation is the same.
I tried a bunch of different ways to get a believable sidelit peach fuzz in the renders. I finally started hand painting a layer. What do you think?
That is looking incredible! How did you do it? Did you add it in post or is it a shader?
Both modeling and texturing is pretty much perfect I’d say
I started with Miguel Santiago’s dt3d skin shader that’s based on an Oren Nayer. It has inputs for a fuzz effect but that really didn’t get me all the way to were I wanted to go. Peachfuzz is not really a surface effect, It’s actual geometry. I tried painting in the shader channels and thought about modeling tiny hairs but in the end I painted over the mental ray render in post.
Thanks for the kind comments.
Hi Glenn,
you found the perfect balance between texture and reflection for the bubble, it’s beautiful now! Your comment under the wireframe picture is interesting…I understand what you mean, my question is: Would we see a difference in the wire if you modeled with another approach? Nevertheless, there’s nothing to crit. And your skin test…what we think…are you kidding?
This is one of the best skin close ups i’ve seen so far. Just amazing …
-sabrina
I’ll tell you what man, this is like crazy good. Very natural and lifelike.
When you reach a point where cg images start to look this real, theres no really nothing to crit anymore. I cant wait to see the final image. Keep it up.
Brian
Hey Glenn very beautiful face you made, and the skin shader is just outstandingly natural :applause: . I still don’t get how did you made those hairs on face, I personally don’t use mental ray, since I don’t use maya I don’t now what is “painted layer”? Anyway awesome work good luck I’ll be watching your progress
Here’s a side by side showing the rendered frame and the handpainted fuzz frame. Pretty subtle and when you pull back almost subliminal, but it makes me happy to know it’s in there.
Well…the only thing helping me to deside what’s real and what is not…is the small hair on skin…Absolutely stunning shading.:bounce:
Very nice image. I will have to put a lot of time into my texuring to compete with this 
Good concept and execution. My only crit would be the reflection of the childs face in the bubble looks a bit dark especially under the nose. Maybe and extra light or something could help this? It’s a small crit, everything else, especially the skin is so tight. Great work Glenn.
Final face composite. dt3d oren Nayer skin shader. All hand painted textures. No photographs. Paint Effects hair. Single light source with bounce and shadow cards. Mental ray with final gather and hdri.