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How to make a human Head (or Blender People)!! by Ben Cannon comments please!

This Tutorial uses the new skinning and lofting surface tools in v 1.58. It also assumes intermediate knoweldge of Blender and an understanding of my fragmented speech :)

Perperation: if you have the means (get an Indy, they're cheap!) capture some video of yourself starting with your head in profile and turning to face the camera. (in about 9 seconds)

Digitise this at 10fps full-feild on an Indy so that you have 90 frames (1 for each degree of rotation, you KNEW I had a reason!)

Import this movie into an animated texture in blender (make sure to hit the movie button after you select image as texture type) then hit SHIFT-F7 and select that texture as the animated background image. Hit SHIFT-F5 to return to the viewport.

Start at frame one. (slider)

Add->Surface->Curve now start tracing around your profile. CRTL-LeftMouse adds CV/knots.

***Remenber to add plenty of detail around the nose/eyes/lips!!!*** You will not easially be able to go back and add CVs later.

When you're done, duplicate your curve, rotate it about it's top 5 degrees, advance 5 frames, and re-trace yourself! Your video (or still image) will help you, but do NOT  let it influence you! The hardest part here is to visualise what you *know* your head should look like, and modify CVs accordingly. Working in 3D is very much like working with your hands in clay, you must create from within, not copy from an outside reference. OK, my Sillioquie is done, enjoy the pictures! -Ben.

Repeat as needed, using less detail where apporiprate. Sometimes a curve every 20 degrees will suffice.

Here is the hard part, as you duplicate and modify these curves, keep in mind the general shape of the human face. the video we took will *guide* you, but it will *not* do the work for you. Remenber to compensate for the shapes of the nose and eyes in particuliar, their curves need to fall off far faster than the animated backgorund would sugges. Also, remenber that the lips and chin eventually fade into cheeks faster than the video as well.

OK, now you've got a bunch (porbally 6-10 or so) curves that make up half of a face.....

It's time to skin!!! First, save your blend file as something memorable (in case you need to go back to it, do this often, as many steps in blender are irreversable!) Now select all the curves, hit CRTL-J to join then into one object, enter EditMode (tab) and hit CRTL-f to loft the discreet curves into one contigous object!!! Wasn't that fun?

Now duplicate this new object (SHIFT-D) and move it just a *tad* to where the other half of the face would be. Hit "s" to scale (but DON'T scale!) hit the "y" key to flip around y-axis. click LeftMouse taking care not to scale the new half of your face. Now select both bojects, hit CRTL-l and select "surf data" to make the two halves behave as one!

You can now begin the most important phase of making the face, the final tweaking.

This is where you bring out details like the lips' shape and the definition of the eyes (and eyebrows) also the full shape of the nose usually needs attention, as do the cheeks (removal of nose artifacting and eye pitting there) and the chin and neck need a lot of help still..... I suggest you setup a camera and lights and texture that will allow you to see depth and do many, many test-renders, and even a few fly-by animations to get the look *just right*

When you are done (hours later, there is just no other way around it if you want a realistic head) you will have a fairly decent looking human face model! It's time to texture however way you want. Right now the most precise way is to use a grid texture, render that on your face, then take that back into a paint program and use the data there to get accurate colour placement info.

Ton: when are we going to have texture-displacement keys?!?! (hey, we can all dream, right?)

Anyway, it is possible to obtain good output with trial-and error textureing, and perhaps I'll add more on that later... in the mean time, enjoy your Blender People!

Chick here for the Blend File!