...couldya do me a favor and change the general head shape itself?

A goodly share of the new characters in and about the marketplace have the same basic head shape... round it out, giving it a square shape, decrease the jaw a little, anything - just please, please do something with the head itself! Squish it a little stretch it a little make it wider, widen the face itself, narrow the head, change the proportions within the face, make the ears bigger, smaller... something, anything! (same with the face-to-head proportions, BTW - a majority of them look fairly alike.)

Something else to consider is that not all eyeballs ears and noses are perfectly symmetrical. Sometimes there are small deformations that while not immediately apparent, tend to give the character more... character, without distracting from the overall beauty you're trying to reach, and in many cases enhancing it.

I could be dead wrong here, but after giving the MP a second look, I'm afraid that (with but few exceptions) I'm prolly not.

Nothing in particular y'understand, but take the time and look at human faces while you're out and about - take a camera with you and discreetly photograph some heads. Take measurements, notice the subtle differences betwixt human faces... then shoot for that. That will get you more sales than anything else, honest.

(/me stops whining now.)

/P

We've had a lot of talk about how all Vickies look alike, and every Mike is secretly Dan Farr, and I have to say, I don't think it because of limitations of the mesh. There is a bland sameness about beauty. Sorry, beautiful ones, but there it is. Real faces have character, usually of the sort that shines past asymmetries and disproportion and even flaws. The American obsession with youth promotes an Eloi-like conformity that abrades away the battle honors we earn while becoming someone rather than "just another pretty face." Making a real face is a challenge. M

Go to the marketplace and get "Roxanne 2" and "Boris" by Capsces, and the many faces for them. These products help eliminate the sameness of Mike and Vicky and are an excellent value. -jjsemp

Suggestion: Lesrn to play with magnets, spawn off some morphs.

Ah, but I do... and that's why I wonder why folks charge money for something that (in many cases) looks like a mass of morph dial twists. :) /P

While we're at it, not all women have areolas the size of a quarter (or smaller). How bout a few more wonderfully natural female figures with larger areolas on the "texture ", for V3. The freebie character Steena (check freebies) from Stenographics is a good example of larger areolas except she's for V1&2. A V3 example is Lola, by Mint & hawktoey here at the MP. Thanks for listening :-)

If ya want an odd head, try Judy.

"If ya want an odd head, try Judy." Hahahaha. Very funny. Cruel, but funny. :)

There is not actually a bland sameness about beauty, but there dos seem to be a tendency for each figure to reach an optimum point-- in someone's eyes, not mine--and stay there. For V2 this was an upturned nose, collegen injected lips, pouty late teen beauty. For V3-- who has so many options it's staggering-- most faces are round, with tiny child-like noses and the same delicate mouth. I'm so sick of them. There are more than a few exceptions to this rule-- I'll mention two very different ones, Lilith by Rio and Billie by Cin. Both of them look like women. I think Danae's Jokasta does too, but I haven't rendered her yet. None of those models have the "starting to be classic" V3 look. all three of their noses are longer than normal and their faces are more angular. Can we kill that "classic" look, can we declare a moritorium on it? Emily

Why don't you start a post with show me a real face not a v3 face and see what people come up with :)

Can we kill that "classic" look, can we declare a moritorium on it? Ooo. Dangerous suggestion. You'll put 80% of the Hot 20 artists out of work with that. :)

I agree with the head shape thing. Different chins would be good as well. I must admit I'm partial to little turned-up noses, 'cause I have one myself. LOL

When I make characters with less predictable features, people tell me they're unmarketable. As far as "classic" proportions are concerned, codswallop. Beauty is like a fantasy novel; as long as the elements are mostly consistent that's what catches the eye. The Andrea Delgado character at DAZ is a good example of unconventional good looks.

Ok, here's an example, it's the second face I made with v3-- there's a larger version in my gallery. She's got a long nose and a long face and I think she's beautiful. She's my avatar at another forum and I'd kill to look this good. Emily

Emily I like your face ;o) Excellent job on making her different. I messed some tonight to try and get a non looking v3, don't think I did very well but I just use dials as I'm no good using magnets. V3 is beautiful, and though I'm kind of in a toon stage right now, one thing I do like to do is to take Judy or Don in the face room, you can get some pretty nice looking normal faces. The image in this post is V3, the others are all Judy same face front and side view in the face room with the texture from th face applied. The first judy is what came from the face views I used, and the others are from using the caricature dial with the max setting no more than about 500 to 600 or they get goofy looking.

This is the first Judy, the shap of her face came from using the front and side views of a photo

I used the same pose dress and lights, the only exception is that Judy is a little closer and up a little higher than in the V3 image

V3 took a little while, where as once I had everything lined up in the face room with the texture, it was just a matter of a few seconds and a few dial twist, and you could get an entirely different look

Last one

The gal in post 17 is outstanding, Pokey or is it Miss Dots? Looks like an Ado Annie kind of face if you know Oklahoma. Put Goth makeup and black hair dye on #18 and you have my Amazon hairdresser. Big boned and proud of it. I gotta try the face room. Oh, an my V3 was all dials, Latin, and Slav and sunken cheekbones-- to be fair she does not have a proper profile to go with that nose. It squashes. Emily

damn Emily, always thought that your avatar was steph :)

Attached Link: http://www.beautyanalysis.com/index2_mba.htm

My comment about the bland sameness of beauty apparently needed quotes around "beauty." I was thinking of the silliness over at Marquandt Beauty Analysis, with their "universal beauty mask" (which demonstrates definitively that anyone who looks like Carmen Electra is beautiful, regardless of race, color, or creed). Love the Judys, and everything I see in here says to me, "It's not the mesh." Two of the first add-ons for V1/V2 at DAZ, Sara (Catherina Harders) and Deirdre (Mary Dell), were very distinctive, both in the face and body. Deirdre is a permanent favorite with her "too big" pelvis and "too small" breasts, and a great sculpted "too big" mouth. Sara is "ugly" like Tina Turner and Buffy Ste.-Marie (two of the most beautiful women I can think of, and no bloody "universal beauty proportion mask" will fit those glorious faces), and her face is just as racially ambiguous as Turner's rich stew of Black, Creek, and who knows what else. They look like real women, not Vickie with a bit more eyeshadow. What this suggests to me is that people have grown used to taking the level road: twist a few dials, declare a "Character." As a result, 95% of what we see is "Vickie as ..." and "Mike as...", with the occasional "Stephie as...." Everybody ends up looking like Tab Hunter and Madonna asleep. Love those Judys. M

Emily call me anything you want lol! And Thank you. I f you don't mess in the P5 face room you have to give it a try, it does amazing things with Don also :) And Mickma I think you are right, almost all the faces people consider perfect do have the same look, me I happen to like people like say for instance actress Kathy Bates, she has character! I like the people that look like us everyday ordinary people, wrinkles big noses crooked noses crooked smiles double chins, and no high cheekbones that look like you literally took a chisel to them! Geesh I'm talking about myself! lmao

Hmm. Five minutes in the Face room, ten in the Materials room (looking for Dierdre and fixing the blouse), another ten diddling with hair before I settled on one I liked, and another ten fiddling with the #*$!@ lights. Judy again. She's no Mona Lisa, but I like 'er. Deirdre texture from Mary Dell; hair by AprilYSH from her Jocosa package. M

Oh, y'all are messin' with me. Now I want to post faces that don't look like their default mesh. Pokeydots, I think 16 looks like actress Glen Close (think that is the spelling). :) Beth

Beth, lol you have it covered on the best people looking characters! I didn't repeat it but your characters are the best, boris liluns roxanne puppet, and all the others :) And mickmca that is a great face! She has character :) Beth post away I love seeing your characters! Here are some shots of don from the face room, quick ones so I didn't lighten the texture but you get the idea :) And sinsister good to see you over here!

Those are some very varied Don's, pokeydots. You do some great work in that Face Room. M, that lady you made looks exactly like one of my aunts. Beth

...one of my aunts... She looks a bit like a young woman who used to work for me, and a great deal like a Flemish lady in a painting I'll never remember the artist for. In all fairness to Judy/Don bashers, I think they are talking about the Pose room mesh. Her base there is a bit spooky. But the Face room mesh is a miracle-maker. If someone would just fix what it does to the head/neck seam.... M

Thanks Beth ;o)

Attached Link: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/from_the_neck_up/

In case anyone cares, I built a Yahoo group for this kind of nontraditional Poser character building some time back, but it didn't get a lot of responses. Y'all are more than welcome to join and share (tips, renders and files). Don, Judy, I don't care who your favorite base character is (although I prefer something with more polys than Dork/Posette). Check out "Tiffy" on the welcome page to see a nontraditional beauty done with V2.