Great work on the head. Yes we would love to see the sculpt in Mudbox.

Thank you very much everyone!

Peter: Thanks a lot!

Paul: Thank you, Yes I’ll have to post those screen grab… The textures are hand painted at 90%.

Jason: Thank you… Really like your work!

whirlwind123: Thanks a lot… I hope someday I’ll have the time and cash to do some kind of tutorials but you know there isn’t really any secret but hard work and a LOT of observations.

alan_smithee: Thank you, I agree with you but I’m done with that one… I’ll do the next better.

Longboarder1: Thanks a lot.

iatriki: Thank you!

oDDity: Thanks a lot Rod… I honestly think it’s worth trying but you’re right, it’s just another tool… If you have skills, you can get interesting result with almost any decent available package.

skycastleMud: Thank you Dave, I’m going to make these screen grab asap!

Here’s another base head I’m working on among other things… It’s still quite a WIP though.

Cheers,

Jacques.

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... stunning

It is realistic, like all JD’s stuff, but as I’ve said elsewhere I would like to see a lot more ambitious and dynamic lighting when it comes to portraits, rather than this totally flat washed out GI which seems to be almost ubiquitous in Cg.
The reason for this is that it’s much quicker and easier to get a realistic and convincing result with this flat washed look, but it has to be made clear that this type of lighting is just not very aesthetically pleasing.

http://www.pixelwerks.be

whirlwind123: Thanks you!

oDDity: Thanks a lot Rod, I used that kind of lighting to see it good, track mistakes or lack of details in textures but that’s not the final version anyway… There’s 1 area light, luminous cards and an HDR at 50%. Could you show me an example of the type of dynamic lighting you’re talking about?

Cheers,

Jacques.

Well, the whole motivation behind my ‘portrait of a girl’ image was the lighting challenge, and also the 3d version of the vermeer painting I did, though I was largely getting the lighting information from the painting in that case, but it’s always a big challenge to set up the dynamic lighting contrast and subtle hues and tones that result in the shadowed and penumbra areas of skin and hair in those sort of lighting conditions. Think of the best Rembrandt portraits for example, it’s all about the lighting not the head.
It depends what you’re trying to do of course, if it’s just a technical exercise to see if you can produce a realistic CG head, or if it’s meant to be something more artistic, but you’ve already proven to us all many times that you have the technical ability to produce very realistic Cg heads, in fact you’re one of the best in the Cg world at it, so I’m not sure what your motivation is these days when you produce an image like the last one.

The fact is that producing a realistic head model with that sort of flat GI lighting is quite trivial in 2009. The techniques are quite well known now, and the tools are making it easier all the time, so unless you’re going to add something special or different to make it stand out, there doesn’t seem much point.

This is no doubt sounding more critical that it’s meant to be, but I just like to see skilled people challenging themselves and upping the ante every time, not getting stuck doing the same thing.

Maybe you could try doing a whole person for example, just to challenge yourself.

http://www.pixelwerks.be

Thank you Rod, I think I understand and did a test… Is it more in the direction you meant?
As for my motivation, it’s rather simple… no limits. I’m actually very critique about my work and even if I have to admit I’m sometimes happy with some of them, it never last. I think I’ll stop working on those faces when I’ll find them really realistic.

I also have other challenges of course… The latest head actually has a body, it’s just that I hide it for the rendering until I’m happy with it… Especially when I know that you’re around and how harsh you can be when it comes to anatomy :)

Cheers,

Jacques.

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This is a lot more artistically interesting. I think all will agree, but the balance it that it loses some realism (which is not necessarily a bad thing). IT is quite difficult to keep realism under all sort’s of different lighting conditions, and I suppose that is where you should be challenging yourself if you want to improve, to get your models to hold up under those different conditions.
I don’t know if you’ve studied classical portraiture much, but I’d suggest looking at the work of masters of portraits such as Rembrandt, Velázquez and Sargent to get ideas for both composition and lighting which will really add a lot to your already excellent technical skills.
The only technical crits about this one are the hair, which looks very thin and brittle and the eye sockets have a very ‘cutout’ feel in the second lighting condition.
I’ll look forward to see the full figure.

http://www.pixelwerks.be

The new one definatly looks a lot nicer.

In the older one there i slight sublte red tinge under the chin which I liked and also a slightly stronger rim light with looked nice and ‘photoshooty’

Awesome work. I would like to see the mudbox sculpt too. Your hair solution on all three models is excellent too. Inspirational. :)