This week I decided to challenge myself and attempt to sculpt a stylised head. I found this tutorial from Small Robot Studio’s on Youtube.
What is needed to sculpt a head?
I learnt from the tutorial that to sculpt a head you need a front view, side view and to have fully considered the planes of the face.
Sculpting
I began by importing the references into Nomad sculpt and using the move tool on a sphere to shape it. I then coloured the clay flesh coloured and pulled the chin down by masking off the rest of the head so only the front bit elongated. I then used the crease and planar tools to create a ridge for the back of the head and jawline.
A helpful technique I learnt was to keep changing the resolution of the clay so I could focus on big shapes then slowly work my way down. I used cylinders for the kneck and ears, to keep things accurate I kept the mirror tool on the whole time.
After basic head sculpting I moved onto the facial features. A cylinder and sphere for the nose that I manipulated with the move tool. An upside down cone fro the clabella, the a sphere within a sphere for the eyes. I used the trim tool to cut a chunk out of the bigger sphere so that they turned into eyelids. I then masked each bit off individually and pulled the corners down.
After the features were in place I then fine tuned the heads facial planes and carved the lips. This was very challenging and I have a long way to go before it looks good, but this helped me to consider the face as a 3D object and how elements interact with one another.
To create the hair and eyebrows I used the mask tool to draw the shapes then I used the extract setting to pull the masked shapes up. This kept the shapes contouring to the head but also providing a clear definition. The back of the head is simply two spheres pushed into place.
I then used the paint tool to very loosely add colour.
The finished to-do list I had for the week.
Final Thoughts –
I definitely bit off much more than I could manage with this tutorial but I learned a great deal. Mostly what places I needed to improve. The shape of the mouth and how it works is a lacking skill for me, as well as the finetuning of details needs more practise.
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