A methodical way of sculpting head

Arnav ZeK
6 min readDec 26, 2019

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References from a great book Anatomy for sculptors

what makes a face look Asian?

what are those things that make a face look masculine or older?

More stuff

And more references and guides

Guide for complex parts such a eye

A bit more

For ears

For lips

Aging for lower face in women

The tooth

Side tip: Don’t use clay until the last step & try to use as many separate objects as possible

THE TUTORIAL

For the base mesh, human face is a sphere with flat sides and and from that a portion is dragged. shape of curvature getting almost flat reaching the chin

with a sharp separation for neck

next step

then the neck

front face has three horizontal section two for cheeks and the middle one which becomes the chin and is the widest in the eye area and thinnest in the chin (bottom) section and the middle section is also most close to camera

BASE MESH COMPLETE

Now we will first add eyes and toward the smaller finer complex parts

and a little transition at the lower part and even little on the right part

Now the cheek bones (clay strip tool) just where the eye ends (lower part)

Rotate view: Currently the scrollwheel binding doesn’t exist in 2.8

add ears before going to the next step otherwise when you will later add ear everything will look weird

add ear where jaw meets head

Now we will go a step deeper with nose separation of eye socket and cheek bone

Make and angle at the middle of the eye toward the back and point the part where nose will start downward

punch the part where nose will start eye socket should be making an angle with it at the moment

Gently add nose in the most simplest way

Add the jaw line

make it sharper and push the rest to complete the sphere of the head

Back to the nose

Make a slight curve & draw a separation of nose and face

push the holes very slight

start adding crease to the sides of the nose these parts have the sharpest crease curve is necessary

take that crease upward

now smooth the curve and now flatten the top part

Taper the upper part of nose decreasing the gap between the sockets nose & adjust a few things keep the curves and Pluck the chin out at this stage with very slight crease

Eyebrows, push the forhead to be a little flatter and add clay for eyebrows very carefully

smooth it

add a crease above

above the eyebrows skull has a curve

The mouth

add separation, smooth it out, add lower lip, draw muscles

crease the upper lips and bring the upper lip forward

add muscles on the edge of the lip (clay tool)

It is not recommended to makes muscles at this point

Define cheek bones, push it up and a little outward

add crease and smooth things out according to the character

draw crease inward for muscles surrounding the mouth

Nose

make a curve crease from bottom to top of the nose

and make adjustment accordingly

when to use crease and when to use crease and when to use draw sharp

try to use draw sharp whenever not working with muscles

draw cavity on top of lips

flatten the tip of nose for men and sharp for women

Draw eyelids separately which we will later merge with the main mesh

it is better to make a flat rising bridge from the point we tapered nose to the forehead

join the eyelids

make a mask to define separation between lips

after bringing it down

redefine the lips with a curve going across

using that curve push mesh in carefully

make the cavity between the eyebrows

The ears

mesh the portion that will go in and push it in and smooth the the side where it meets the head

how to use grab professionally?

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