Johnny Destroy's sketchbook

[Mahlikus The Black]

Guy Pearce

[JohnnyDestroy]

Maybe he's not well-known enough, but I kinda think the likeness is pretty decent by now. Far from perfect, but you know...

I'll show you a screen with some placeholder hair, in case that's what throws everyone off, and then get back to work.

[zber2]

My guess is Tom Petty.

[Mahlikus The Black]

I agree with that now. The hair sold it. Was gonna say Shaun White but like I said, the hair sold it.

[SwampGhost]

I wish I'd seen the previous posts without the hair before I saw the latest one, because I actually think I might've recognized it, from the bulge around the mouth and the shape of the nose.

Of course it's easy to say that now, but I have a bit of "personal experience" with this particular man and his appearance: When I was a teenager in the 80's I had similar hair, and people used to say I looked like him, so I used to gaze at his pictures a lot and wonder "do I really look like that?". I didn't. People just get hung up on hairstyles and accessories, I find. I also got called John Lennon when I wore little round glasses, but I don't look like him either.

Anyway, with the hair I recognized this from the thumbnail. It's definitely shaping up nicely!

[Yumme]

Hey man! I just had to reply to your thread.. been going through the entire thread and ... man!!! You're sculpts are so clean! Let alone the fact that they are really well done and they do look very good... beyond that, the simplicity that you have even in the most complicated models (the orc arm) is striking!
Other than that, just wanted to congratulate you and, more than that, thank you! Thank you for the motivation you give me and for the fact that you post large walls of texts which are actually a wealth of information for noobs like me! Thank you so much for this and, please, if you find the time, continue to post your work and continue to post all your findings and insights! They do help a lot!

[JohnnyDestroy]

Yes, you guys nailed it!

I was getting a bit discouraged at first and was contemplating putting the project in the freezer, but when I saw that you guessed who it was I put "I wont back down" on repeat and kept at it. Thank you all for the kind words.

Right now I feel that I've nailed the major features as much as I am going to. I can still see that it's not perfect, but I honestly believe that that's something that will only come with experience. This is my first likeness, and there's no point to keep trying to get the likeness to a pro-level, I think it's just a waste of time. It's better to settle for the overall likeness i have now and start detailing particular areas instead.

It's been a very interesting project so far, it's so different from what I'm used to. It's also something I would reccomend everyone to try out at least once, trying to create a likeness is a s-u-p-e-r-b way to train the eye and I feel certain that my modeling in general will improve from it.

P.S. Yumme, you made my day. Reading things like that warms the heart, and I'm very glad you like my work/style. It's fun that you mentioned the "cleanliness" in particular, since it's pretty much a calculated move on my part. As i mentioned in my first posts, I'm a huge fan of Hergé, and ever since I was a kid I've been fascinated by his clean lines and minimalistic approach, so it's defenitely something I strive for in my own work.

I'm also very glad you appreciate the walls of text. I always hope that someone, somewhere will find them usefull, that's why I write them. I find that it's easy enough to find tutorials telling you how to do things and how various software features function, but it's much harder to find tutorials covering the "why" of things. I'm fascinated by workslows and since I love to read about how someone went about things, why they did it in that particular way and what their thought process was, I've figured that perhaps someone else feels the same way.