Head Sculpt

[Simon]

This head was made with sculpting brushes and the soft move tool in Curvy 3D 4.0. I was aiming for a more expressive face with a modelled ear. Hair + Render in Blender.

[sculptor]

really, really super sculpt.

I played with a copy of this image (hope you don't mind) as i thought the skin
looked a little bit plastic.

Found two different methods to improve skin.(using corel photopaint old version)
1. a semi transparent black to white diagonal fill. (disadvantage of slightly washing out)

2. sample/target balance. change highlight pink to very light grey,
midtone brown to slightly more neutral brown, low-point black to slightly lighter and slightly greener.
(No 2 method made the head become uncannily realistic)

I don't know how you would translate that into blender settings but i enjoyed the play and
it taught me a lot about skin tones.

[Simon]

Sounds cool, I'd like to see those!

I think I went over the top with sub-surface scattering and specular. Just learning about rendering in Blender so I have a long way to go - probably need to learn more about photography too to get the right lighting.

[Simon]

Here's another with toned down material.

[sculptor]

this is what i got using sample/target balance
of course it depends what skin color one is aiming for.
I was just concerned with removing the plastic effect.

[Simon]

You are right that colour balance makes it look like a photo, very cool.