Hi... first of all I really go through each of these videos, practice and repeat and I learn sooo incredibly much... I cannot tell you how much I appreciate this course. I am a total beginner (not anymore thanks also to the courses of CGCookies) so all the time so many questions come into my mind...
One question I have about this process of the course until here: I fully understand the intention to learn these Loomis-inspired formula attempt as it helps to create a head from scratch. It's a very technical way - that's ok, as a developer I like clear algorithms I can follow :-) ... but this is just helpful for the overall shape and basic positions of the face and the elements of a face. Later on if you create a character or you want to create a head with references you will need to re-position and re-size everything to match the references. So I wonder if in practice you would choose to take an already prepared model of a head and start to adjust the mouth, eyes, nose etc. from that instead of taking a sphere and starting to sculpt the basic shapes in that way?
Hey @tobitaurus,
Its wonderful to hear this feedback about CGCookies courses, we are extremely grateful for you sharing your appreciation, Thank you.
You would be exactly right, once you have the base head sculpted (Chapter 1), any future sculpts would start with this base.
With a base model, it is fairly easy to add/remove clay layers, inflate/deflate, grab, smooth, flatten, etc., etc., to better match any reference image before adding details to a new character.
Thanks for hanging out with us, and plough on through your Blender journey with CGCookie.
Yeah I imagine is like learning to ride a bike or playing the guitar. At first it will take a lot of brain power and a lot of focus and attention, but the more you do it, the less it becomes part of conscious awareness and you delegate it more to the automaticity of the mind, you're brain's got it and now you're a natural baby yeah. In fact, probably when you're a pro, paying to much attention to the process will probably hinder it. In other words, awesome guitarist no longer have to focus, they go by feel, those fingers move by themselves at that point and for awesome advanced human 3D sculpting is the same. So just practice, practice, practice.
Hi @tobitaurus - Thanks so much for your kind words! They mean a lot. In fact I copied and pasted them to my personal happy file for the rainy days :)
To answer your question: No, I do not sculpt each head like this. The loomis method is only there to help beginners / people unfamiliar shaping the human head. Once someone is comfortable or proficient, it's much more efficient and reasonable to start with a generic head.
Sometimes I will start with a generic head similar to the start of this lesson, transitioning from planes of the face into the smoothed basic version that needs facial features refined. I'll usually go this route if my project is more relaxed and I can take my time. Or if it's going to be a humanoid creature more than a regular human.
Other times I need to get a regular human done quicker, then I will start further down the line. Like a generic head that's already been retopologized and just needs facial feature alteration and skin pores (like the start of this lesson).
I think there's a common feeling of "cheating" to start with something other than a sphere. But again, once someone has sculpted a head from scratch a few times and is clearly comfortable / proficient, it's kinda silly to always start from a sphere. Nothing wrong with it, just not as efficient.