The Impress: Big head and body update! (New: 2/3)

I think she looks pretty good for a first try! Her profile does seem that her lips are perhaps a little too puckered out... http://www.portrait-artist.org/face/profile.html here in the first picture you can see how a person's lips at rest don't go out further than the nose. The upper lip usually sticks out a little further than the lower one. She also will probably need more clay on the top of her head so that she can fill out her wigs. I have a problem with never sculpting quite enough up there and then the wigs don't fit properly. :S She looks pretty good so far, the mermaid ears are maybe a little bulky in the fins? It's hard to get your finger in htere to smooth it out I'm sure... you can take a new pencil and sharpen the eraser to a point and use that like a little finger to smooth it a bit. ball tipped straight pins are also great tools for getting in to smooth out little bits like that. good luck!

 

Coming on pretty good!

I agree with batchix though. A tried and true way of making the wigs look good is to start the eyes half way down the face, we see people with hair more often than not and tend to ignore the head under the hair line, if you start half way down, once you add hair she'll look perfect!

 

Yep, the lips need to be reduced, and the nose needs to come down further, and the angle it's at right now is a bit severe. Like Batchix says, add more to the top of her head.
I'd say, reduce a bit more of the cheek near the chin, not too much, if you're looking to make her look older.
That being said, I think you're off to a pretty good start.

 

She looks very sweet

 

Her lips should not stick out farther than her nose... on most peoples faces the profile from the nose back goes sort of like \ that, but the lips are always farther back than the nose and on your doll's head the lips go out further. So you can either build up the nose, or dremel the lips back. Personally I think she looks adorable just as she is. X3 but I like fishlips.

 

I think you need to smoothe out the lips on one side, then It won't stick out like a fish anymore.

The faceup makes a big difference though!

 

Good call on narrowing the face. Unfortunately, you're right that something's off... and since it's in the fundamental proportioning, you're probably going to have to resculpt if you want to fix it. :/

Take any image of a doll and run a line through the middle of both eyes. Now look at how much of the face is on each side. It's probably about half, and if anything, the above-the-eyes area will actually be predominant. That's easy to miss when you're sculpting, because of course there's more detail in the lower half -- nose, lips, cheeks, chin -- versus the eyebrows and forehead.

But it matters. Here's a quick edit of your last photo:


Even in the thumbnail, you can probably see how much difference rebalancing the proportions makes.

 

I should probably add, for the record, that proportionately bigger foreheads tend to look "cute," so you may want to experiment with changing the proportions even more.

 

Ack! I just scrolled down and assumed the last pic would be the newest... sorry. Obviously my advice is seriously out of date.

 

*ponders the actual latest pics* She's really quite charming... reminds me of a Gelfling. But the look is quite different from standard-issue "cute dolfie." Do you have any reference pics of the sort of look you're going for? Side view pics would be particularly helpful, I think.

 

Lips are tricky, and I've been trying to think of how to explain it, but you have them basically inside out.

This will make no sense whatsoever unless you actually get a chunk of clay and do it, but follow with me here:
Make a sphere of soft clay. (sculpey, a kneaded eraser, or some eye putty, maybe? It needs to be soft for this exercise to work.)
Cut halfway into it like you were making a Pac-Man.
Pinch at the corners of Pac-Man's mouth. This is what your doll's lips are like currently. Flat inside, curved outside.
Now, roll the sphere again.
Cut into it again, but go all the way through.
Turn the half-spheres around backwards, curved sides to each other.
Pinch opposite edges together.
This is more like what lips should look like. The touching surfaces are curved, with a sharper ridge around the outside.

I hope that helps.

If if doesn't, I could actually take photos of me doing it. But it should give you a better idea of what the lips should be doing.

 

Here is a sculpting tutorial I found online (probably from a link from here). I found it helpful to look at her progress pics to get a handle on the lips.

http://www.hanniesarris.nl/page.php?page=sculpting_fairy_head&lang=en

 

For the lips I found it helpful to use an o-shaped wire loop tool to dig out the cupids bow. It helps to make an even and defined area for you to base your lips off of.

 

Heh. I tend to work that way too, but when I get stuck, it usually does help to look at reference.

If I were you, I'd do what Akkhima suggested, and also add a bit of a dimple at the corners of the mouth... this is a very subtle thing, but it really seems to help make lips look like lips.

 

The lips aren't bad ^^ But if you look at a person in profile, the top lip sticks out further than the bottom lip. When the bottom lip sticks out as much then the result can be like you say, a bit like fish lips!

Anyway you are doing well, looking cute!

 

i love the fact that the lips are slanted...i'd def. keep that if i were you. You can try to make them bigger, that'll give you more room for detail. Her ears appear to be too high up tho, ears normall go from the bottom of the nose to the eyebrows (plus a bit more for elf ears). She looks so pretty with the wig !