Character Creation - Blender Foundations: The Essential Guide to Learning Blender 2.6 - page 129

model with a Mirror modifier. Adjustments only need to be made to one half, and the other half follows
along.
To match the eyes to the reference, begin by Alt-RMB clicking the ring of edges that describe the eye. You
can move it all at once, pulling neighboring vertices around with PEF, and slightly rotate and scale it along
the x and z axes to get it close. Follow up by moving the individual vertices to create the proper shape.
Match the mouth in the same fashion as the eyes.
As you work on this from the front view, it is useful to toggle back and forth between solid and wireframe
modes. Solid gives you a nice idea of how things are coming along, while wireframe lets you see the
reference image and actually work.
When you have the front view taken care of (overall contour, eyes, mouth), move over to your side view.
Here, you use the same technique (single vertex selection with PEF) to create the proper profile. At this
point, you may find that adjusting something in the side view might throw things off a bit in the front
view. Here's where the translation to 3D takes precedence over your references. Unless your side and front
reference pictures are mathematically accurate, there will probably be some differences. Maybe your sketches
aren't perfect (duh). Maybe your reference photos were taken with slightly different expressions or a bit
off angle. Whatever the case, you must decide on a happy medium when the two don't exactly line up.
The final rule is to find what looks best in 3D.
In addition to the contour of the profile, the side view will also help you match the contour of the cheeks
and cheekbones, and the eyebrows and orbital ridge.
Once again, switching between solid and wireframe views will help you to see the actual results of your
work. At this stage, it can also be beneficial to make another 3D view, set to solid and perspective for a
more “true to production” look at what you're doing.
The Web Bucket for this chapter has a small video, face_matching.mpeg , that shows this process in motion.
I have found that the base head provided with this topic can be easily and quickly adapted to a large
variety of situations, from realistic to cartoonish, both male and female. Figure 6.4 shows the base head
adapted to my sketches for the example character. The sketches are also available in the Web Bucket in
case you want to follow this tutorial exactly instead of creating your own character.
Refining Facial Features
Simply forcing the base head to match the contours of reference images will not produce a satisfactory
result. Due to the very low-resolution nature of the base model, there might be places where you simply
can't get it to conform very well to your sketches. Figure 6.5 shows a few of these areas highlighted on
the example character.
Before you begin adding detail, add a Subdivision Surface (Subsurf) modifier to the head. This will give
you a better idea of what things will look like when it is finished and help you to decide where you need
to add geometry.