Beginning puttypusher seeks feedback

M

Mosch

Active member
I just started trying my hand at sculpting and I would like some help from you guys....

First of all, here\'s what I got:


I whipped this up in a minute or two just to practice and then noticed that I have no idea at all how to sculpt lips. Or the mouth in general. So if anyone could help me there, I would be most grateful. Also, critique in any other area of my facial work in appreciated (that sounded kinda wrong), but keep in mind that this was supposed to be a go at a face only, it\'s far too deformed for a head ;)
Personally, I am pretty proud of the forehead and the nose.
Thanks.
 
P

Prophet

New member
Use reference materials. The eyes are way too high for starters. Thats usually the first thing I put in and they serve as the primary reference (for me anyway) for the rest of the facial features. The bottoms of the eyes should be right around halfway up the head. At 28mm or so scale, the upper lip is minimal. After the mouth has been put in, simply pushing up slightly just under it will form the lower lip. The lack of chin on the face so far will make the lips look odd regardless. This reads harsh, and I don\'t mean it to, just pointing out areas that that need the most work.
 
M

Mosch

Active member
Orginal gepostet von Prophet
Use reference materials. The eyes are way too high for starters. Thats usually the first thing I put in and they serve as the primary reference (for me anyway) for the rest of the facial features. The bottoms of the eyes should be right around halfway up the head. At 28mm or so scale, the upper lip is minimal. After the mouth has been put in, simply pushing up slightly just under it will form the lower lip. The lack of chin on the face so far will make the lips look odd regardless. This reads harsh, and I don\'t mean it to, just pointing out areas that that need the most work.
Click to expand...

Harsh or not, I can\'t learn from undeserved praise ;)
About the eyes, I didn\'t actually care where I placed them, I just tried to make two holes that looked like eyes under a forehead and tred to get the rest of the facial features in a relatively correct position. I\'ll try to make a mouth as you advised, sounds a lot better than my method ;)

Dragonsreach: Thanks, but that book is 25€ and I\'m a poor student ;)
 
G

Gaffanon

New member
try working larger at first it may help when I do Eyes i make the eye ball fisrt ahead of time the put them in the head and put the lids around them also I tend to thing in terms of musculature how things work on a person for example bottom lip and eye lids goon before the upper lip and upper eye lid its the way your body works and the upper lip is a wide er plane than the lower lip so that it just ends in the lip if that makes sense to you. I dont know if this helps or not but thought id throw my 2 cents in.
 
M

Mosch

Active member
Gaffanon, thanks for your efforts, but to be honest with you, I didn\'t really understand what you were saying. A little punctuation might help ;)
 
K

Klute

New member
Push from the sides and up to get the cheekbones.
Work the mouth then add another roll of putty for the chin. Like yours looks I was loosing bulk when doing the mouth.
I advise to do the full head too not just the face. This will at least help with placement and proportions.
 
freakinacage

freakinacage

Well-known member
try greenstuff. i know a lot of europeans use fimo but i find it easier for faces at least. if you do use it, try doing the basics like rough shape for nose, cheekbones, eye socket s and mouth and then leave it for 30mins. you can then work the putty more easily into certain shapes
 
M

Mosch

Active member
Yeah, but greenstuff is a one-shot try, it hardens on its own ;) I made a face today that was much better, but I don\'t have it anymore (sakura tried her hand on it too) and the picture I took is pretty bad.
 
I

Itchy

New member
Based on the way i sculpt heads, i do the lips almost last. Here\'s a WIP shot;
FaceWIP1.jpg

All that\'s left is 1) lips, 2) ears and 3) hair then some clean up. Explain how you\'ve made you\'re head and i\'ll try to work with your habbits to see how we could make the mouth area. Everyone does it different based on style and preference.

Oh, and i sculpt heads in a million different sections. It takes me as long to sculpt a head as the rest of the whole body. So i work in GS instead of a polymer clay. Not sure how much of a difference that\'ll make either.
 
freakinacage

freakinacage

Well-known member
Originally posted by Mosch
Yeah, but greenstuff is a one-shot try, it hardens on its own ;)
Click to expand...

yeah but you have an hour or so working time on it. i think i would have lost patience anyway by then!
 
I

Itchy

New member
Ok... first off, my main sculpting tool is the Kemper Tools USA B3 wax carver
B3.jpg

i use this with a plastic peanut butter jar lid of water to use as a lubricant between the GS and wax carver.

i start with the mouth blank and chin and nose already done like the picture in my previous post. Then after that\'s all cured, i take a teeny log shape of GS and pick it up with the flat end of the wax carver. i split the log about 1/3 the way from the top and press it onto the blank mouth so that it wont slip off the mini\'s face. Then i take the curved end and crease the upper lip. After that i just shape the bottom lip based on how the mouth will be. In this case it\'s got a little snarl out the corner of it\'s mouth so i pushed the lower lip down and opened up an area that will be painted as teeth.
HeadWIP2.jpg


Not much to it. The real work is touch ups to the rest of the face after you put your mouth in. So next up for this head is ears, then touch up, then gets attached to the body, then gets hair.

Hope this helped a little, let me know if you\'d like better explenations on any part of it.
 
M

Mosch

Active member
This is all great stuff, thanks.

The way I sculpted the face... let\'s see.
First thing is a cut where I want the eyes to be, with a part in the middle left intact. Then I push up and down to form the eye sockets. Then I push the forehead a little downwards and then pull it up a little to get the features right (hard to explain, but I hope it\'s at least a little understandable ;)).
Next thing is the nose, which is pushed from both sides to form a slight lump, then I pull up from under the nose to form.... a lump that is on the right place to be a nose. Um.
I do the rest of the nose by random pushing, more or less, just tug at it until it looks good ;)
Then I define the cheeks by pulling the outline with a clay shaper (which I also use to smooth all the transitions), repeating that until the cheeks are a little higher than the rest.
Then the mouth. In my last try I cut it in and then pushed outwards to do the lips which worked reasonably well. I have not yet tried to sculpt a closed mouth.
I do the chin with the clay shaper, basically like I do the cheeks.

As I said, a minute or two, not longer. I am currently trying to get accustomed to my sculpting tools... my first sculpt is awful, but I learned... a little ;)
 
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