So I started sculpting a head...

[Van Helser]

Evening all

In amongst the pressures of real life I've been trying to get my Space Marine Scout finished.  I was never happy with the head I produced first time (amongst other things), so I tore it off and started again.  The first couple of attempts weren't much of an improvement, but things slowly started getting better, and at the moment I'm looking at this:

Nice of the camera to show up the rough bits around the bridge of his nose, but never mind. 

In achieving this I became more confident in my head sculpting abilities and started work on some heads for human sized 54mm models.  More have gone in the bin than appear below, but I'm fairly happy with how these ones have turned out:

The last fellow there is still WIP, but I thought I'd stick him up anyhow.  They all need some final filing and smoothing, and a decision to be reached regarding hairstyles, but they're all pretty much done.

My plan is to move on to some heads for daemonhost/mutants and add some female heads to my repertoire... I will hopefully get round to building some models to stick them on to at some point as well!

Ruaridh

[MarcoSkoll]

Some good stuff going on, but you could do with paying more attention to the proportions of the face and skull. When I sculpt heads, the ruler is constantly out to check dimensions.

The skull is about 4 units high to three wide, with the eyes and (top of) the ears half way up that. You also seem to be doing pretty heavy and deep jaws, which although reasonably understandable for a Space Marine, is something you'll have to lose when you start to try doing women.

As far as adherence to proportions, Picture 3162 (third from bottom) is quite easily the best in my opinion.

What exactly is your method for these? My method is usually to create a small blob of putty about 1mm smaller in each direction than the basic skull shape (on the end of a pencil, normally), let that harden, then assault the rest of it in one straight stage - it gets harder trying to do it in bits. Just make sure fingers don't end up in it.

I would ALWAYS recommend reference photos when working. Go find some photo of anyone who looks vaguely like what you're aiming for, and try and match it as best you can.
The thing I learnt with my first batch of heads was that the best ones used "realistic references" - with the others, I was just sort of aiming to include the features of "comic book" faces and they just didn't work as well.

The other thing I have to say is: Green stuff. I only ever tried one face in Procreate, and after that, it was back to the blue/yellow. For faces, its qualities really are superior. It doesn't hold hard edges properly, and that's JUST what you want when sculpting faces, particularly women - faces don't have hard edges!

Sorry about assaulting you with a short lecture, but I hope it helps.

[precinctomega]

The other suggestion I would make, other than all of Dave's very sensible advice, is to get hold of some teeny-weeny ball-bearings (Hasslefree stock a selection of sizes - I recommend the 1mm) to use as eyeballs.  You make a socket, press the bearing in, let the area cure and then sculpt the lids over the top.  Much, much easier than trying to sculpt an eye.

The other option is to have a specially-shaped tool: one with a concave hemispherical head of the right size that you push into the putty to make the shape of the eyeball.  Again, allow that to cure and then sculpt the eyelids over the top of that.

R.

[MarcoSkoll]

My preference for eyes is a really small needle and the sharpened end of one of my two old GW sculpting tools.
Poke the two corners of the eye, then press in the definition between eyelid and eyeball with the curved "blade".

The reason I do it that way is because of my preference for "single stage faces" - as it's a bit of a task smoothly blending in a new layer on a face, the results of a slightly less ideal method that can be done in the one stage is often a better bet.

That said, two ball bearings carefully set in a blob that acted as the "skull" for the head could help keep proportions during sculpting, and avoid the risk of eyes creeping up or down the face.