How to Sculpt a Face
The Female Face Tutorial - Page Four

The fourth part to "How to Sculpt a Face" deals with the nose.

STEP 13: Smooth out the eyes and attempt to make them as symmetrical as possible. This is important. The eyes tend to be the first thing people notice when looking at a doll, so if they are obviously misaligned, it can hurt your chances of a sale.

If you are finding it difficult seeing if the doll's face is symmetrical, try looking at it up-side-down or through a mirror. This tends to change your perspective enough so that you can see the error.

STEP 14: Create a narrow pyramid shape for the nose and blend onto the face. Note that the smaller end is at the top, slightly expanding out to the bottom of the nose.

Also, see how the bridge of the nose blends into the brow-line in line with the top eyelids. Be sure not to end the nose too high or low. Constantly refer to your photo reference.

STEP 15: Here is a side view to show how the nose lays on an angle. In this instance I have slightly tilted the base of the nose upwards.

When working with the features of the face, you can create many different characters just by tweaking things, especially the nose. If you tilt the nose downwards, you will create a hooked nose. This tends to be used more when sculpting aged men or women or more sinister characters. A slightly upwards nose tends to depict femininity or innocence in a doll. Play with the features of the face and see how they change the character of the doll.

STEP 16: DO NOT punch in the nostrils yet. This step is done later. Now you can move onto the cheeks.

We need to fill out the cheeks now, creating two small pancakes and applying them to where the "apple of the cheek" would be. Note that it's more to the front than the sides. If you add all the bulk to the sides of the face, she winds up looking like she has a flat face and huge cheekbones.

Sit the cheeks up under the bottom eyelids.

Continue on with this tutorial:

How to Sculpt a Face: Steps 17-20

Go back to:
How to Sculpt a Face: Steps 9-11

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