I’ve started to realize that although the idea to sculpt only 1 feature is great for a focused effort; plopping something like a nose, eye or mouth down on a sphere doesn’t give me any context for how they’re represented in relation to the rest of the face. There are structures immediately surrounding each feature that define character and emotion that I should also read into.

So, instead of sculpting on a blank sphere, I’ll now build off of the last sculpt and see where it takes me. There aren’t many things I can call out as lessons learned during this sculpt aside from knowing I needed the areas next to the nose to achieve something believable.

Maybe, I should point out the different parts of the nose for reference since it’s helpful to know them and see the muscles that form them.

Here’s a reference image I found with useful labels on key landmarks. Some of the areas that seem more commonly defined on a male’s nose would be the supra alar crease, glabella and tip of the nose. Females seem to have much smoother shapes to their nose. Even though a certain part of the nose like the supra alar crease might be more pronounced on some females, the entire shape as a whole tends have softer angles.

Here’s another displaying the muscles underneath:

Below is a video of my process on the nose:

@mayjormayham Sculpting someone a day at a time, 1 feature a day. Who do you think this will be? #artist #creative #art #3d #3dart ♬ 1901 – Instrumental – Phoenix

Here’s a link to my previous post in case you’re interested in the mouth sculpt leading up to this one

The post Sculpting A Nose For Practice appeared first on Khaos Kollective.

For instance, I’ve found it much easier to form eyelids by first establishing some basic form around the eye socket. Nothing too precise, but enough mass to have an idea of where the eyebrow is, the bridge of the nose and cheekbone.
Then, take the DamStandard brush and draw out the shape of an eye. Similar to how you would do it in 2D. Once that’s done, inflate the mass in the middle of that shape. It’ll definitely look weird at first, but there’s a method to the madness.
Also, here’s a huge lesson I learned to easily establish forms without fighting ZBrush too much. In this block out phase, sculptis pro mode tends to be a game-changer. I was originally taught to use dynamesh to block out, but I now disagree with that approach. Dynamesh has it’s purpose, but when you just need to push and pull mass around to establish form, sculptis will get you there.

Anyway, after you’ve inflated the eye lids, append a sphere, scale it and position it where the eyeball would go. There’s plenty of nuance to this, but it’s difficult to explain in text and I simply didn’t capture pics to elaborate. I’ll do that on a later post when I share the progress I’m currently at.
Now, deflate the lids until they wrap around the eyeball as eyelids do. Use pinch to define the edges and clay tubes to add mass in areas where you’d find fat deposits.

I know that tiny bit of text isn’t enough to establish a good workflow for yourself, but I’m mostly just blogging all this out to solidify the techniques in my mind. If there’s anyone out there actually reading this and would like a demonstration, I can make a video.

Ok. Now that eyeball was only the first sculpt. Day 1. Where things have developed from here is actually pretty shocking to me. Day 3 and forward will all be separate posts, but I want to combine day 1 and 2 here.

My 2nd day, I focused on lips. Here’s the reference I used

This led to a pretty decent sculpt and it actually wasn’t the only reference I used, I just can’t find the other one right now. The other reference showed the muscles under the skin so it made it easier to visualize where to put the mass.

I’ve taken to TikTok, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube to post clips of the process. If you’d like to check those out, here are the links:

@mayjormayham Sculpting someone a day at a time by only sculpting 1 feature every morning. Who do you think this will be? 'Dystopia' by Neutrin05 is under a Creative Commons license (CC BY 3.0) Music promoted by BreakingCopyright: http://bit.ly/Neutrin05-Dystopia #artist #creative #art #3d #3dart ♬ 1901 – Instrumental – Phoenix

More to come. If you enjoy this post, please leave a comment below. Although I do like to use this blog to record my progress, I tend to keep a majority of the info in written form. If there’s an audience that actually wants to read this stuff regularly, I can post more often.

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