Help face

[SpikedHelmet]

I'm having a hard time making a face.

it's the first time I've tried a face since ~2 years ago and the disastrous results on US infantrymen:



Since then Gnome and/or Zsinj made a fairly decent model and I've been working on it for the past 2.5 hours (just started today!).

I think its much better but there's a problem. The face. In short:



I've inadvertently created G-Man (with cute little red heart earrings):

[Argh]

Less dead-white-man color. Use oranges, pinks and browns, darken him up some, very few people are that pale.

Smaller eyebrows.

Less emphasis on the bags under the eyes (if you want a suggestion of that, where the man still looks young, use some purple).

Highlight the nose, give it a little preshading, then maybe a little red-brown near the end, to suggest some sun exposure there.

Arms should be more true browns, with some red, to suggest sun exposure. If you want a really realistic look, the insides of the arms need to be lighter than the outsides, due to the way sun hits them.

[SpikedHelmet]

Good suggestion about the eye bags w/ purple, never thought of that.

I added a bit more tones to the skin, mainly brownish and orangey-ness. But I don't want him to be too unpale, I still want him to look like a sickly, tired soldier who's probably suffering from dysentery, athlete's foot, and mind-numbing horror.

I also reworked the uving on the face a bit for better shading, made the eyebrows smaller and redid the mouth into something less distinct. Added some shading to the neck and darkened the highlight on the hands...

[Argh]

He still looks too old, imo. Like, elderly.

Average age of guys in ETO, IIRC, was about 23.

Showing the "horror of war" on his face needs to be mainly working with the expression, and very gentle use of color. The gross anatomy needs to be correct for it to feel right, imo.

And... meh... in practically every photo I've seen of GIs in the field, unless they were in a static position, they got tanned and sunburned, and they were really dirty:



(note: this is in PTO, not ETO)

(not: this is Korea, but it's still fall / winter, note the mud)

ETO, looks like the period after the Bulge.


This is one of the classic photos of the war. Note that that's a fairly young guy there- maybe mid-twenties, no older than thirty. He's out in the real war, where guys did not tend to shave a lot, except for maybe Patton's crew.

The image of the bearded soldier was so commonly seen as the real way it was, that the comics soldiers read show the typical "dogface" with a beard. Even though it's winter, and even though it's B&W, we can clearly see that his skin's exposed, darker than it would be if you were just indoors, etc. Maybe experiment with a beard.

The pasty-white GIs in Bocage fighting photos (unfortunately, most of the really good photography I was able to find during my cursory search are from that first bit) are newbies, and you can tell. They have all their kit, netting on their helmets, and many other details that would have instantly marked them as replacements later on in ETO.

[Wolf-In-Exile]

- body proportions are closer to 'normal' than the original, but it still looks off, might wanna check it with references.
- very noticeable seam down the middle of the face, you'd want to check the topology to make it look more natural
- face tex itself lacks some tonal contrast in areas that define the more subtle facial features such as jawline

[SpikedHelmet]

@wolf: Being a model thing I can't really comment but I agree the proportions are off... I just can't place my finger on it.. well, for one, his legs were a bit too far apart, giving him a cowboy kinda look, so I moved them a bit closer together.

Anyway, thanks everyone for the help! Especially Argh cuz he helped more than any of you.. he went and got pics!

Here's latest:



I think its looking much better. He doesn't look like an old man anymore. I changed the shape of the eyes slightly (into more droopy), darkened under the eyes a bit, redid the mouth again into something with some shape and a bit more "poutyness" and of course darkened and added some colour to the skin.

[KaiserJ]

that's looking awesome man... even the first attempt was great, but what you've done with the latest version is amazing.

[Argh]

Much better

I'd say, give him a bit o' hair on the outside of the arms (just airbrush suggestions, obviously), and that'd be quite decent, for the size of the map.

[Gota]

Will you have black soldier models?im starting to worry about racial issues..you need Asian and black soldier models.

[Snipawolf]

Just get out. Go jump in a fire somewhere.


I think the soldier is great. You've really outdone yourself.

[SpikedHelmet]

1) US army was segregated during WW2, there were no mixed units of blacks and whites, or whites with any other visible minority (doesn't that tell you something)

2) Too lazy.

[smoth]

1) US army was segregated during WW2, there were no mixed units of blacks and whites, or whites with any other visible minority (doesn't that tell you something)

/me sighs...

[Warlord Zsinj]

Looks great spike.

I still think the mouth is a little low. This could be (I'm not really sure) because the other features are slightly off and in comparison it looks strange (f.ex, it might be placed appropriately with the nose, and chin, but the nose and chin might be incorrectly aligned with the rest of the head):

First, the vertical magenta line divides the face into two separate halves. Use this to keep each side of the face even and balanced.

The red line goes across the eye-line. The eye-line is right in the middle├óÔé¼ÔÇØbetween the top of the head and the bottom of the chin.

Halfway between the red line (eye line) and the bottom of the chin is the blue line├óÔé¼ÔÇØwhere the bottom of the nose is.

Then, a little less than halfway between the nose-line and the bottom of the chin is the mouth-line.

Also note the yellow lines that go up and down├óÔé¼ÔÇØthey line up at the corners of the mouth, up to the pupil of the eye.

(I think I was taught 2/3rds / 1/3rd for the location of the mouth between the chin and nose)

Or if you want to get really technical,

The space between the parting of the lips (the mouth) and the base of the nose is one-seventh of the face. The space from the mouth to the bottom of the chin c d is the fourth part of the face and equal to the width of the mouth. The space from the chin to the base of the nose e f is the third part of the face and equal to the length of the nose and to the forehead. The distance from the middle of the nose to the bottom of the chin g h, is half the length of the face. The distance from the top of the nose, where the eyebrows begins, to the bottom of the chin, i k, is two thirds of the face. The space from the parting of the lips to the top of the chin, l m, that is where the chin ends and passes into the lower lip of the mouth, is the third of the distance from the parting of the lips to the bottom of the chin and is the twelfth part of the face. From the top to the bottom of the chin m n is the sixth part of the face and is the fifty fourth part of a man's height.├óÔé¼┬Ø

[Saktoth]

in practically every photo I've seen of GIs in the field, they got tanned and sunburned, and they were really dirty

Yeah, wow man those guys look REALLY tan!

Uh. Sorry. Model looks good.

[bobthedinosaur]

no. you are just really pasty