Hey Jacques, This is looking great! I’m really liking these Modo renders. I’m looking forward to seeing the progress on this.
ahhh, eyes. eyes are really difficult to get right. on my last few heads i spent a large amount of time tweaking the subsurface of the eyes, the reflection values etc. there are so many things that go into making them look right.
i think they need a little more reflection, maybe even add a fresnel effect. have you gone through and modeled all the eye pieces (iris, pupil, sclera, cornea)?
as for the spec on them, i’ve used HDRI maps for reflections because it keeps them from having that ‘default’ circular specular highlight. also, what i like to do, is add a little piece of geometry, a thin tube, along the bottom lid where the eyeball hits the lid. give that a fully transparent material, and turn the spec up on. it gives the eye a nice wet look. i’ve attached an example from a previous piece of mine so you can see. you’ll see a little bit of spec on that bottom lid and it really helps to set the eye off and make it look wet
oh and here is the shaded view so you can see the piece i’m talking about
“Great skin and eyes on the model” …and it looks Ben Kingsley’s but in a strange way !..Could be that Ben has aged more then i thought, the head looks so “soft” if he has molten bones in his head and a flabby skin…the lower half of his face looks to soft and “puffy” …at this stage it looks more like a study of an older man then a realistic Ben Kingsley !
jantim
Nice ripper, I think the eyes look very cool already.
Zipp - that sliver of goop along the lower lid is a nice detail, thx for sharing.
I feel just envy, what a cool shading and model!
What soft have you used for rendering? Btw, I would like to have some tutors about such lighting 
yes there is something to improve on the eyes, I think the problem comes from the modeling of the lower eyelids, they look too rigid and not in contact with the eyeballs, other than that I think these eyes are very nice.
anyway this is the best head I’ve seen from you, I love the nice subtelty of the modeling, keep going !
what software did you use to render?
Thank you Rick… totally agree… Modo is awesome!
Thanks ZippZopp, I’ll check it out.
Thank you jantim… I see what you mean, I started a bit on that one but still need lots of work anyway.
Thank you John Turner, I have some ideas to improve them though.
Thanks shserge, the lighting is rather simple… HDRI+Keylight and rendered in Modo.
Thank you Dezz… you definitely right about the lower eyelid… I already started to work on it as well.
It’s rendered in Modo JFSebastian.
I’m going to stop working on the lighting and shading for now… I really need to get back to Zbrush and the textures before I go any further with this wip.
[attach=31967]BenK_WIP_015.jpg[/attach]
The ripper.
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Nice work, very well done!! Something about it doesn’t feel like Ben Kingsley to me though. I think it might be the eyes, you have them sloping downwards, in the pix I found of him, his eyes are very level across. Just my 2 cents. Unless he’s really aged recently and his eyes started drooping and I just haven’t seen him lately. Or maybe it’s just the angle you rendered him at. 
Beta tester of modo 201?
What do you think JFSebastian? I’d say It was rendered in Modo if it’s not !?!, I’d actually be beta tester and post on a public forum without being allowed to!?!.. don’t take it the wrong way but what kind of question is this? Yes I’m Modo 201 beta tester and I’m allowed to do this.
The ripper.
hey…what kind of attitude is that, dude? i think sebastian made a legit question, cause, erm, modo at the momment doesn’t render right? actually i was suprised myself, when you said it was modo…just hold your horses mister.
I hope that you’ll forgive me Darkshift but I’ll pass on that one!
The ripper.
Very humble…
You know what JFSebastian, I’m sorry… my reply was a bit harsh but you have to admit that your posts are a bit weird!
Your first post was… what renderer? I tell you, it’s Modo… You then asked me if I’m beta tester… how could that have been otherwise?
I’m sure I’m not the only one who gets a bit tired about these kind of questions… I’m definitely convinced that the renderer you’re using is not going to make you a better artists and that’s probably why I over reacted.
I hope you accept my apologies.
The ripper.
I’m definitely convinced that the renderer you’re using is not going to make you a better artists and that’s probably why I over reacted
I’m a lightwave user and at this point i don’t have micro-displacement, sss, and ambient occlusion. I understand that is not the software, but you have to agree that this features really help!
Btw, nice work.
Yes that makes sense JFSebastian and I kind of agree but I used lightwave for 10 years and I could manage to do interesting things with it anyway.
[[attach=33611]BenK_WIP_016.jpg[/attach]](javascript:zb_insimg(‘33611’,‘BenK_WIP_016.jpg’,1,0))
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Yes it’s looking better, it’s bit weird looking with the eyes dryer. Honestly, i think these likeness “challenges” are a bit ingrate both to the artist and the viewers…Personally, if i want to see Ben Kingsley, i want to see the real person in a movie acting breathing, not a 3d representation of it. I compare this kind of works to the artists that do portraits in the street for 50 dollars…But it’s like anything in life, you probably love it or hate it. For me art it’s about new concepts, new creatures, and worlds…
well I think it is a very nice excercise to better understand human anatomy because you have to catch the personnality of a character by the many subtelties that make the character alive, which are sometimes small features that wouldn’t have thought of without reference.
Trying to match precisely the reference pushes you to discover more of these.
makes you conscious how each face is completely different and why.
I agree with you when people do a quick likeness heads, I find these works very useless, but I think rippers work is very interesting because he gives so much attention to every detail that the character definately feels alive in the end.
to me this is very beneficial for the artist even more if the work is shown on forum like this one because people can recognize the characters wether they are artists or not, so every opinion is interesting.