My Head Creation Process

And now its time for a quick run down of how I created my model through a series of print screens and short descriptions!



First of all I took some reference photos of myself. I then used Photoshop to draw some topology lines across my face in order to make it easier to create the polygons which would build the face when brought into 3D Studio Max. Once they were loaded into Max, I alligned them together. I have used reference photos to create models before, but I have never drawn reference lines over them. I will definately do this in future as it makes the process so much easier.



I then created each polygon using the topology lines on the photos.



In the left viewpoint, I started to drag out each vertex to roughly their correct positions. This was a little tricky, especially around the eye area as most of the vertecies overlap. I just had to estimate where they would be placed and then move them around later.



Here are the results of the vertecies being dragged out, along with a few tweaks to some of their positions to match the proportions of my face. Over the course of the modeling, I would continue to move around the vertecies to get a closer representation of my head.



I then began to fill in the hole for the nostrils. I did this by extruding the surrounding polygons outwards and inwards, and creating new polygons where necessary.



I did the same process for the lips. Extruding polygons for the bottom lip for some reason would not work as well as it did for the top lip. I tried to play around with them but I could not get it to a satisfactory level. So in the end, I left them and came back to them at a later stage.



And once again for the eyelids.



Once again, a few minor tweaks were made to the face, such as the bags under the eyes and various lines around the face. At this stage I was very happy with how the model looked from the side, but not so much from the front. I found it very difficult to get the model to look right from all angles. However, looking back on it now, this was probably down to the lack of texturing which obviously made it look more like myself.



Once the face had been completed, it was time to move onto the head. I started off by creating a sphere and moving it to the correct position.



I then deleted most of the sphere, leaving behind just the ones along the top. Using this as a reference, I started to create the rest of the head.



This is the result of the head and neck completed, but not welded to the face. I ended up creating a 10 sided polygon around the ear area. However this was done on purpose, as I knew that this section would be re-done later when the ear had been completed and needed to be welded to the head.



Here, the face has been welded to the head so it is now one complete model. Two spheres have also been placed in the eye sockets as eyes. It was quite difficult getting the eyelids to fit around the eye. A lot of vertex tweaking was necessary.



Once the head had been completed, it was time to move onto the ear. The exact same process for the face was carried out. Using the photos as a reference, I drew each poylgon and welded them together.



Here is the result of the ear being extruded and played around with. Creating ths ear was a very lengthy task, but I eventually got there and I am very pleased with the end result.



And here is the ear once it had been welded to the head. Before I moved onto the texturing, I took the chance to make some final tweaks to the model, as once I started the next process, it would be very difficult to make any changes to the model without it effecting the texture.



I applied a checkered texture to the model and used this as a guide when creating the UVW map. The idea was to make the pattern as equal as possible along the entire model. This would then mean that once I applied the skin texture to the face, it would not stretch. This required a lot of moving the UVW map around.



Here is the final UVW map.



I then cut and pasted my reference photos over my map. Again, this was a very lengthy process. Thanks to the patch and clone tools in Photoshop, I managed to complete this without too many problems.



I also used the same process for the eyes. Unfortunately I had some trouble getting the eye to perfectly blend together. This was due to the fact that the eye had to be split up over 4 sections of the UVW map, and as a result, it became harder to get the exact blend.



And here is the result of the UVW maps applied to the model.



I then used Photoshop to create another layer to my face UVW map. This would be used to add another layer of detail to the model.



Here are the results of the new layer being applied to the model. It has given the model a slightly more realistic look.



However, in order to get a much better effect, I also added a Noise sub-material layer to the model in order to add more randomly spaced out bumps. This has a much more pleasing effect.



And here is the final render of my model!