Beastman Head Work in Progress

I was starting to get the shakes due to lack of zbrush work so I've set about remedying this by knocking together another head for my SS1 project. This one differs from the previous work I've been doing in that it is obviously not human. I fancied varying the work a little bit, and wanted to use what I have been learning about human facial structure and adapt this by adding influences from animal skull structure and some of my own creativity to produce something a bit different. Even at this relatively early stage I'm rather pleased with this sculpt. I think I've managed to get all the base forms down well which will serve as a good platform for working up a really high level of detail. In this kind of work it really is important to get things like the structure, form and silhouette down quickly, if you get this right then the sculpt will look good at any level from then onwards. However if these fundamentals are missing no about of high detail or polish will rescue it. In terms of areas I've mentioned in previous posts about my sculpts I think this one demonstrates an definite improvement in sculpting eyes, although the lips are probably the weakest area of this model so there is still plenty of room for improvement there. The ears I think are, although they differ slightly from human shape, again better than ones which have appeared in previous models. The turnaround to get to this point has been relatively quick which is pleasing. Originally I began with a sphere and dynamesh with an aim to creating another male head similar in process to the previous one I modelled, but when I came to sculpting the eyes they were giving me grief so I started cutting interesting shapes into the model to make it more fun. A slightly abstract shape came out of this which resulted in the groundwork for the beast man head and also a horned helmet which isn't present in this screenshot. I'm really enjoying modelling heads as the can contain enough character to sell a character concept by themselves but take a fraction of the time of a full bodied character. This way I do can more of them, iterate my designs quicker, which is very useful as I find it's when I get to the end of a design that I really pick up everything I've learnt doing it. Final thoughts in relation to Richard John Willocks presentation earlier today and his quote from John K that "ugliness is beauty" I have decided I completely agree, I enjoy sculpting monsters and the slightly grotesque more than anything else.