Hi.
I’m glad that you are again sculpt. 
I love the dragon and skull.
Good luck with retopo dragon. It really can be a headache.
I hope soon to see new updates.
Thanks for your kind words!
I really enjoy traditional poly-modeling and manual retopo. It is like a puzzle. And the more complex puzzle is - more fun while solving it.
Yeah, I also hope to came back to sculpting. Though I really don’t know when and if it would happen - I got some problems with nervous system.
Something went wrong when I posted my comment. Now it should be fine.
Damn it, cannot leave her unfinished. I decided to continue with this girl but I need your help cause I still cannot achieve the likeness. Any advice would be helpful. Here are problem areas that I’m already familiar with. Don’t hesitate if you have something to add.
- The curvature of her brows is a bit exaggerated in my sculpt. Mainly because I was using a reference where she looks a bit surprised. Kinda like it but this might subtract from likeness a bit.
- On some photos where she is a teen her lips appear more plump. I’m using more recent photos as a guide. Still, I think I might add more volumes to the upper lip.
- Basically, her lower part of the face is very asymmetrical. Her left angle of the jaw is more pronounced and structural. And overall the head looks wider. I believe this is mainly due to the bad lighting in Zbrush - the sides of her face are darkened, making her look slimmer.
- Her left eye is higher than right one. For now I’m keeping them at the same level for practical purposes. Also, the crease of the left upper eyelid has a bigger curvature - definitely should to fix it.
- The most difficult part is the volumes of her jaw right to the sides of the chin and below the lip. I redid it many times but still cannot figure out the proper volumes. I think the pillars of the mouth (lower portion of Orbicularis oris) and mouth depressors should be bulkier.
- In some photos you can trace the lower margin of her eye socket along all its length. I decided to flatter her and soften it laterally. I hope it doesn’t break the likeness too much.
- In some cases the mass of the infraorbital triangle is clearly visible and bulges a lot above her nasolabial fold. But in some cases her face looks quite smooth without reliefs mentioned before. I’m really confused.
Here is a quick render. No hair, no value changes for eyeliner, freckles and lips. Just a simple screenshot. It doesn’t look pretty hence I don’t upload it to gallery. http://orig15.deviantart.net/be1e/f/2015/073/1/9/untitled_1_by_randomdudewatcher-d8lmu4e.jpg
References for comparison http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2014/338/e/2/hannah_by_randomdudewatcher-d88ocwe.jpg and http://orig02.deviantart.net/3fc5/f/2015/073/f/9/hannah2_by_randomdudewatcher-d8lmu2h.jpg
Polypainting skin was always a hard task for me. To train my eye better I decided to start learning drawing. I’m not planning to learn all the theory since it would take a lot of time and effort. I just wanna copy some photos and hopefully learn my brain to analyze colors better (for example, I often have a tendency to make skin yellower than it really is). I know this is is offtopic hence I’m posting a link instead of image. The image is under the spoiler. So here is my first try. IMHO not bad at all, I thought it would came out crappier. And yeah, I messed with colors and was forced to color-correct it later.
PS Jeez, the smoother skin came out, the more it hurts to look at it while drawing (meaning when you stare at very subtle gradients for a while). Does anyone experience something like this or is it just something wrong with my eyes?
Getting a likeness is a tricky thing. I found that the symmetry alone is enough so take away the likeness. Try getting the reference and mirror copying one side of the face to the other, and your see what I mean. Getting some mock hair on there as a temporary measure also helps get the look your after. Try turning the reference image into grey scale, the brain is trying to take in so much information, so if you try to narrow it down to shapes and forms then it will help. Perspective is a serious pain if you have not taken that into account. Try to find the best front, 3/4, and profile reference images. Also as you can see, she looks so different in each photo, so try to get down the aspects you like the most, or find distinctive. Look at the profile of the other views.
Iv done a quick PS draw over to see from at least one image how she fairs up, this is how I go about doing this myself, although I don’t normally care to get it spot on as long as iv captured the essential things that give my female faces the look im after.
Using the eyes as the matching point between the two, I found the following to be out.
: Zygomatic width too narrow
: Mandable width too narrow.
: Nose too high
: lips too high
: chin too high
: temporal ridge, brow bone are more prominent., I put higher on image for brow bone, but should be further out.
: Node of mouth either more volume, or more indent in corners of mouth, bit of both maybe.
: More Volume for lower outer lips, and inflate the lower, and upper lip edge more.
: The edge of the lower inner eye lip should be wider, so pull the lower outer edge down more.
: Eye bag lower
: Pull upper, inner eye lid crease further towards the medial line of the face (inward)
Id be happy to sculpt a example of individual facial parts that I highlighted to emphasize, such as the eyes, lips.
Dan.
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Thank you very much for taking your time and writing a comprehensive feedback. Your previous comment about female anatomy was also valuable.
There is so many words I can write right now regarding your last suggestions but instead, I think, it would be better just to resculpt her and see if it helps.
And yes, I already broke the symmetry… dunno, maybe it is not so obvious in render, but everything except her eyes is not symmetrical. Also, In the render her face is a bit rotated so it is not a best image to check proportions. When I make a full frontal view and decrease focal distance in Zbrush and do a render it pretty much aligns with my main reference. But it doesn’t align with several other photos. So yeah, there are so many confusing elements, making the process painful: different perspective distortions, facial changes during her maturing, soft and harsh lighting, makeup and photoshopping 
Hi tez! I tried to implement your suggestions about my character. I also made a basic texture and exported my sculpt into Blender for more close to real lighting and shading. The result is still killing me and with introducing colors the difference becomes even more drastic.
Anyways, here is the list of things I have changed:
- I made her skull wider (zygomatic arches and lower jaw). Mainly did changes to her right side since it is bigger than left one. Still might be not enough, but I just afraid to make her too masculine
- Lowered the nose, mouth and chin a bit
- The eyelid thickness was already fine. It was just eyelashes growing from wrong place, hiding the major part of the lid.
- Made a temporal line more defined though with soft lighting it might not be so obvious.
- Reworked areas below the eyes and around the lip. Her cheeks are so tricky - they appear reduced and flat in profile but in some photos they look quite prominent. I bet this is due to the makeup (you know when they paint highlights and shadows on top of the skin to fool a viewer)
- Did small tweaks to her chin, brow-ridges and mouth corners.
Obvious problems right now are:
- Overall WIP quality of the render. So please ignore simplistic shader (here it is just SSS with color plus basic reflections, nothing more)
- Weird brows. I was playing with randomization of children strands and it made them too bushy. Also their color should be lighter.
- Her mouth is still bothering me. Especially the upper lip. Proportionally it is more or less OK (on some photos it is even more plump) but just doesn’t look right. Maybe I should reduce some volumes below hence making the bottom edge fall into shadow which in turn will make it slimmer. Or maybe it is just because the absence of details…
- On some photos there is distinct groove separating Orbicularis oris from the mass of the chin. This makes her face a bit frowned and child-like. Tried making this but always looks wrong, so decided to leave as is.
- Irises look bigger. I think this will not ruin the face
- Yes, she looks so different in many photos. I’m aiming more to those photos with very soft lighting in the center of my reference board.
- Skin color might be too yellowish. Damn it, I really have problems with color perception.
This is a huge improvement; it is really a good likeness now. The asymmetry in the jawline, the overall proportions; so much better. You are very hard on yourself, but you are doing great…
Its really coming together now, she is looking much better. You will find as you start to add the finer details she will get closer even still. Details like deeper cuts for the eye lids, corners of mouth, more volume middle upper lip, left and right lower lip. Closing the gap at the tear duct and eye. Fuller random lashes upper and lower. More detail in the lips, ears need much more love. These small things can make huge appeal. Iv done a few of these in this Photoshop over paint. Once you get these things down, some skin detail, and some nice hair your be tweaking minor things.
If you want me to remove the over paint let me know, Keep it up.
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NWoolridge
Thanks a lot for a kind words. It is nice to hear that my likeness skills are getting better. This is my main goal since in future I want to make some very realistic portraits of several persons that are very important to me and I want to make them flawless.
tez
Thank you again for taking your time and doing all this important stuff like explanations and paintovers. No need to remove the over paint, I think I can just match two images in PS and see what liquify tweaks you did.
The gap between the eye and tear duct is a silly mistake, I will fix it first for sure. I already deepened the mouth corners and creases in the eye bag, but looks like I can make them even more deeper. I also have a tendency to make a SSS too strong so partially this areas look not enough deep because too broad scattering. Not sure about the ears. Their form is quite basic since I spent most of the time refining the face, so I will definitely refine them later. But proportionally their lower margin is at canonical “nose bottom line”. And I also should study her right angle of the jaw. It is really strong and pronounced, but in your image you did it more feminine and round. Finally, I see you did several tweaks to her nose (bridge and cartilages at the tip), but you didn’t explain it in text. Do you mean I should make the tip more defined and bridge more narrow?
PS Right now I’m resting from this sculpt and doing environment stuff for the final render. So I will post any updates a bit later.
PPS I already have a Fibermesh hair exported as hair-guides to Blender. But it takes forever to render it on my old PC so I’m forced to render her bald.
hey buddy, just wanted to thank you for this great anatomy sculpt.really helped me for making my first female model.this was an awesome reference.;)
You are welcome. Nice to hear it was helpful. I’m still planing to finish it someday and do a nice render with environment. And then redo her body a bit to fit my tastes (since now it is semi-likeness and semi-imaginary figure) and make it 100% original character.
PS I was too busy this days and forgot to say that I like your orkish creature. IMHO some facial hair (stubble or maybe some hairs sticking from the ears) would make him even more brutal. Too sad it is just a side project - would be cool to see your archer girl against him in deadly battle.
Man that’s a great idea.actually I was planning to use the Orc’s head & make a full body version of him.but first I need to do the final touches on the girl.:D;)
All right then, I wish you good luck and hope to see new updates soon!
stunning work. Just great.
Thanks a lot for the kind words.
I remember you and your creatures from Deviantart - you did a great bestiary 
Just went through all 20 pages watching your work…time well spent! Great sculpts.
Thank you very much, Jakub! It is nice to hear such a kind words.
OMG, if not counting some tweaks I did to my latest model it is about half a year I wasn’t sculpting. But looks like my carpal tunnel syndrome and jammed cubital nerve are gone and I can continue sculpting! Still have some problems with health but I cannot wait anymore.
Here is a quick face I did today. After so many likeness attempts it is so sweet to sculpt something my own while not being bounded with prototype’s features. Also trying to make her a bit stylized. I made a huge image with my favorite characters from other artists and trying to use it as inspiration. Hopefully after some polishing she will turn into the real character. I have a non used body from my last heroine. I think i will modify it a bit to fit my tastes (mainly breasts and shoulders), maybe also make it a bit stylized and attach to this head. I also did some posing just for fun plus some rough lighting tests (jeez, I really should learn more the boob’s behavior in different poses - in theory it is easy but in practice…). Too sad I was too disappointed with my last character and didn’t finish it.
Good luck to all and hope to see you soon.
Hi, Nice subtle forms there. Sorry I haven’t replied to your PM, been very busy, will gte back to you on Monday.
Dan.