Hello and welcome to this tutorial series on creating a realistic head in Blender 2.6!
This is a complete tutorial series explaining the creation of a realistic human portrait with Blender. The entire process will be covered from base mesh modeling, detail sculpting, texture painting, hair growing and styling, sub-surface scatter shading, and compositing. Some of the more time-consuming tasks will be time-lapses with commentary like modeling, sculpting, and texture painting; the other parts will be mostly real-time.
Now that we have a base mesh retopologized from our foundational sculpt, we’re setup for maximum sculpting efficiency. In Part 2 we’ll be sculpting the high-frequency detail of the human face: Wrinkles, creases, and pores. This detail will be maintained throughout the series in a multi-resolution modifier and rendered in our final still.
DISCLAIMER: We cannot redistribute the references used in this tutorial due to the license, but we can use them under Fair Use laws for educational purposes. They’re not available for commercial use, though.
Note: This series has been previously available on Kent’s Vimeo channel but he has kindly permitted us to repost them here in order to reach a greater audience. Parts 3-4 will be available on Blender Cookie very soon, while part 05 will be available exclusively on Blender Cookie.
im waiting for the texturing and rendering tutorials, im pretty good at modeling stuff
thanks anyway
Texturing is next!
Awesome tutorial Kent! I love your style.
part 3 and 4 are already up on his vimeo, just search his name. you’re gonna have to wait a month for part 5 though seeing as how its only gonna be released on blendercookie and they’re relasing each video within one week intervals.
Thanks for this tutorial but next time when you make another tutorial don’t make modeling and sculpting timelapse please. Some of us really like to watch that in normal speed.
I completely agree to you. Especially such a professional topic would be better in normal-speed-video.
Really? This is surprising to me..You would rather see all 3 hours of this at normal speed?
Ya I would like that too or you could try to do both (couldn’t you record in real time then edit it to go fast then post both) Any way thanks for the tutorial!
I really like the time-lapse. If it were normal speed, I feel it would become more of a “follow every step click-for-click”, rather than an overall look at the techniques/concepts behind it. You’re specific enough in the narration that I don’t feel like three hours of modeling tutorials is necessary. Plus, the screen-cast thing in the bottom corner lets you know everything that’s going on anyways.
You do an amazing job, and I love the tutorials! I’m stoked to see the next one!
@Landon: Indeed that seems plausible. Good idea!
@Brennan: That’s definitely how I intended the viewer to watch these – more conceptual. So thanks!
There is a lot you could teach us about sculpting that just isn’t there right now, ya know? We get to ‘see’ you work, but we are missing all the little decision making skills that are the key to your ability. Time lapses usually seem like a way to show off without imparting any real knowledge. No offense meant, that’s just the impression I’ve always got from pro’s who do them and (I suspect) don’t really want any more competition in what, I hear, is an already over saturated field. Besides, a 9 Part Series of one hour tuts is not unheard of and usually pretty popular. Porsche… M-16…Johnny Blender(3 times!) I’m sure the vast majority want great results with no effort on our own parts(ahem “Short Tuts”), but the ones who want to succeed, eat that stuff up. Awesome work, by the way!
@John D Smith II: I can see where you’re coming from. I can only speak for myself and I assure you I’m not showing off or keeping important information to myself. In fact I felt like I was inflating the commentary to be more than it actually is…but I appreciate the crit. I’ll apply the best I can
@Aron Twose: Similar to the above comment, I’ll try to be more thorough in my commentaries for future time-lapses.
Specifically addressing the skin pores: Pore size, distribution, etc; It’s all about copying what I see in my reference. Since sculpting is more artistic instead of technical it’s hard to explain “why” I do something in a sculpt except to say, “because I see it in my reference”. The texture does all the work with pores. And anytime I’m using brush textures I always use it with the Draw brush because it’s simply IN or OUT along the surface normal; no special/funky behavior for the brush.
I know that’s probably not the answer you’re looking for, but it’s honest. I really wish there was a deep bag of tricks in my back pocket I could share…but it’s much more about practice and not special techniques.
Thanks for watching!
The time lapse is great for me since I’m good enough with modeling and the blender interface in general that I wouldn’t benefit from a real time step by step. Being able to see the concept come together in time lapse is a huge help to understand the workflow from beginning to end. Helps me better plan my own projects. Thanks for your hard work!
@Kent- No prob. Sorry if I sounded too nitpicky there or unappreciative. I thank you for even that much! I quess I’m thinking some general decision making to fill in the blanks. Like, How you go about picking textures to create a certain kind of wrinkle, just whatever comes to mind to keep you talking so the viewer is always engaged. You’d be surprised what useless blurb happens to be just the thing for someone else. It’s still awesome to watch you work, just thought would make it better.
@Colin- I’m currently versed in most every function that Blender offers and how to use them (outside of the game engine) I can model and animate “anything”. A general overview of anything that is not brand-spankin new ain’t gonna teach me nothin I don’t already know. I’m after the artist’s perspective… putting the tools to novel uses or getting maximum efficiency, learning every little trick in every little book. That’s just me.
Normal speed would make this a very tedious tutorial to watch. I think sped up is best for the purpose of this series. One thing that lost me sometimes was your hotkeys. Being a beginner in most things CG, especially sculpting, I don’t know all the hotkeys and “why” things are done. The why I can figure out by most of your commentary, but the how is lost when I can’t see the hotkeys you are using. Example: How do you pivot your texture alphas to line up with the creases in the skin? Still have to say this is the best sculpting of the human head I’ve ever seen!
You can rotate your texture brushes with CTRL+F. Generally most hotkeys are shown in the tool tip for the tool
Thanks, Jonathan!
I quite like the fact it is time lapsed as it gives an overview of the workflow, mainly as I have already seen other tutorials that show the sculpting process in-depth.
Perhaps more commentary during the video would help.
One area that I would like to see elaborated a little further is the process of adding pores to the skin, there distribution, which type of brushes you and are using and the reasons why.
This is a great series!! Great work!
i couldn’t do this one because my computer cant handle the 5th multires. but great tutorial!
That sucks, since a big goal for the modeling portion of the series was to maximize sculpting efficiency…what are your machine specs?
Awesome work Kent. Thanks so much for this, it really helped me get a good start in Blender.
I’m very glad to hear this!
As I am new to blender, even though very hard to grasp at this stage, but seems very interesting, I am waiting for next tutorial on this topic
Hey Kent. Love the series. Curious what the system specs are on your Mac.
It’s an older 2008 Mac Pro, Quadro FX 5600, and new upgraded to 12 GB of RAM. Thanks for watching!
i think im going to watch some House after this
Thanks for showing the power of Blender and that you don’t need Zbrush to do this kind of work. An great image comes from a great artist and not a great software suit. It’s something I’ve already knew, but never hurts to be reminded with work like this! Thanks for sharing. Looking forward to the rest of the series.
I already watched this series on youtube…
What is part 5 covering?
-bert
Generating the SSS texture maps and finalizing the skin shader.
And cycles?
I read in the description of your sss study image that you combined the internal for the sss and the skin reflections and jacket with cycles…
sorry for the late answer
-bert
Yes cycles will be used in part 4 for skin reflections
Cool
Looks a little bit like Ton
Nice tutorial! But I have a question: theoretically, couldn’t you have used shirnk-wrap to retain some of the detail from the original sculpt, only on a different multires level? (Usually I do reproject on my Zbrush sculpts that I retopo)
Nice 3d video tutorials…..you made simple learn, thanks for sharing -)
fantastic tutorial not only by content editing and backround music cool and probably It takes me while go through your web side too
your work-flow remind me of Ben Simonds
Maybe it’s me…..but I thought the whole point of a tutorial was to teach step by step how to do something…..here we are just watching someoneplay with the program.
While some tutorials are step-by-step, this is not our intent with this series. Creating something like the human head requires an enormous amount of work and intricacies that vary with every project. Rather than try and show a step-by-step process that will often result in many imitations of the original result, I believe Kent’s goal with this series was to give insight into his thought process and workflow that he uses when creating such an image.
I firmly believe the single best thing you can do with a tutorial is watch it, absorb it and then try to apply the techniques shown by the presenter to your own project. The specific steps are not what are important; the final result is. It’s not necessary to follow Kent step-by-step but instead to understand how and why he does what he does so that you may learn from it.
Cheers,
Jonathan
Great Tutorial series to get ideas from, found the antropus skin alphas… I’m still new to using blender, how do I attach the files to the brushes.
Many Thanks.
I’m having the same problem as above: how do I import the textures?
Thanks for those tutorials, they are really inspiring.
There is an addon “Import brush set”. It should be included with latest blender versions. And in case you don’t see it in the default import/export addon list try to enable addons that are under testing bar (below search field you should see supported levels and here you should find it). Then just go to import and there should be import brush set, just select folder and import. Hope it helps.
Hey, really amazing by the tutorial. One question, which might probably be stupid, but how come everything you did to the sculpture was still mirrored even after you applied the mirror modifier? I thought that would convert it all into one mesh.
Not a stupid question at all – In the Sculpt Mode tools panel there’s a section called “Symmetry” with X, Y, and Z buttons. Activating one or any of the buttons enables sculpting symmetrically in the respective axis. And you’re right, applying the mirror modifier does convert the mesh to one mesh.
Hi people, very nice tutorials, I have a question: how I can install the palette textures provided with this tutorial?
I seem to be having a weird issue with the multi-resolution modifier.
When adding fine details after the re-topology using the multi-res I notice that when I toggle between different resolutions the vertices around the eye-lids go off in different directions, creating a weird eye lash effect(but more extreme, like wings extruding from the eyes).
I’m not sure what I could be doing wrong…
This doesn’t usually happen right away either, but when it does it is irreversible, it has cost me a number of attempts and a lot of time.
Does anyone else have this issue or could it be a bug with the modifier?
Thanks in advance
[Edit]: Nevermind, I found the problem.
Im in love with the ear you made.
I think it would be the perfect tutorial if had no time lapses!
I would like to reiterate Dr. Caballo’s query. How I can we install the palette textures provided with this tutorial? Just down loaded the latest version (2.63a) and still no “import brush set” as E K suggested. There must be some way to do this that doesn’t involve an add on. If this is one of your great quick tips please point the way. Otherwise… Hmmmm……
So So Sorry… I left off the most important sentences. What an absolutely fantastic tutorial. Jam packed with great info start to finish, can’t wait to get to the rest. Pints way up for Kent.
Do you use a tablet for the sculpting or a mouse?
Hi,
This video has the wrong like. Animated book
Kent, the “Import Brush Set” Add-on just disapear from internet. is there another way to add the skin brushes