Retopology - Blender Master Class: A Hands-on Guide to Modeling, Sculpting, Materials, and Rendering - page 106

and on down the neck. By first building outward
from the most important and complex parts of the
head, you'll have to sort out fewer problems with the
topology in the areas that matter most.

head Topology
The head is such a complex subject that it deserves
some special attention here. While there is no one
topology for every conceivable head, there are some
important principles to consider. Mainly, when
retopologizing a head, you should concentrate on
creating face loops around the key features of the
face, particularly the mouth and eyes, which will
make it easy to deform the face into familiar shapes
(see Figure 7-19). These principles apply whether
you are retopologizing a sculpted head or modeling
one from scratch.
By constructing the important areas of the face
with nice topology first, it's easier to join the rest
of the head together. In general, I begin with the
eyes and work down from the nose into the mouth.
Then, I work backward through the cheeks, fore-
head, and ears. Lastly, I cover the rest of the head

Eyes
When creating or retopologizing a head, there
should almost always be a clean ring of face loops
around the eyes (see Figure 7-20). These face loops
should extend out from the outline of the eyelid to
encompass the brows, the outer area of the bridge
of the nose, and the upper surface of the cheek-
bones. This ring will make it easy to close the eyes
or raise the eyebrows or cheeks, and it mirrors the
underlying anatomy of the face: The orbicularis oculi
muscle surrounding the eye circles the eye in exactly
the same fashion as this ring of face loops.

Figure 7-20: The eyes. Adding edge loops around the eyes
makes them much easier to edit, pose, and rig. Note the
tear duct in the inner corner of the eye, where the gap
between the upper and lower eyelids has been bridged.
To create the eye socket, the innermost loop around the
eyelids is simply extruded back and then optionally filled
in to close up the hole.

Mouth
As with the eyes, the orbicularis oris muscle encircles
the mouth and is responsible for widening and nar-
rowing it (see Figure 7-21). To make it easy to pro-
duce common motions of the mouth, we'll create a
ring of edge loops around the mouth in the same
way. This ring will also make it simple to define the
outline of the lips and deform them easily.

Nose/Nasolabial Fold
The complex features of the nose are the nostrils
and its tip. By incorporating face loops that run
around these areas, the rest of the nose becomes
relatively easy to deine.

Figure 7-19: The head, with the major face loops highlighted