The Island

[sculptor]

[Simon]

That head has good clean features, how did you make it?

[sculptor]

I started with a simply shaped block of about 2000 triangles(see note).

BLOCKING OUT STAGE
widgit move tool with a broad shape and large scale to pull the head into the general shape i want.

FINDING THE FORM
increase resolution(number of triangles) by using s-merge
widgit move tool at finer settings to pull out the form including the spikes

DETAIL STAGE
use the curvy map to increase detail using paint brush(lips eyes etc)
use warp noise tool to add texture(hair, beard)
use warp smooth tool to remove facets

NOTE (this is just time saving)(can quite easily start with curvy lathes)
I keep a simple head shape that i have taken through
meshlab and reduced to about 2000 polygons.(quadratic edge decimation with preserve boundary(use target number of faces box,reduce by a maximum of a third at a time )) EDIT: meshlab puts the wrong number of faces in this box so make sure you type in the desired value calculated from the number of faces shown at the bottom of the screen.
This gives a small simple head shape easy and quick to import.
(tip :- i find it useful to keep a little library of shapes, you often accidentally make a shape in curvy and you say to yourself, that would be good for so and so. Why not export it out to an obj library for future use ?)
(MeshLab, a free tool developed with the support of the 3D-CoForm project)http://meshlab.sourceforge.net/

[Simon]

Ace, I was hoping to get some meshlab poly reduction tips
Saving out stock shapes is a good idea - although I always seem to start from scratch.
The nose in particular is a very clean shape.

I want to try some more renders myself - still haven't quite worked out Blender though!

[sculptor]

blender is obviously a very powerful application but i have never been able to use it without following tutorials. To me its interface is far too techie. Curvy on the other hand makes sense to me.

[sculptor]

nose making machine

3 spheres
2 cylinder type lathes
resize, rotate, re-profile at will to form any shape nose.

what is critical is resizing the group so that when you s-merge it joins nicely
without too many triangles



notice how the nose is drawn in slightly when merged with head
also at this stage before detailing i am working at a very low triangle count(complete head is only 10000 triangles after s-merge).
I will increase the resolution just before using mesh tools or painting on details with curvy map.

[Simon]

Thanks for that. I like the clay-like build up of accurate but fairly low poly shapes, ready for a final pass of detailing later. I wish I was better at anatomy then I would try some more complex figure studies using this multi-lathe merge approach.

[sculptor]

I think you are being too modest there simon