But.. I was going for cute, as in Boo from Monster's Inc - cute... And there's something not right here...and I can't put my finger on it...

(The hair is old Poser hair i just added because it looked odd without any and there's no textures at all yet - this is VERY much a VIP, tstraight outta Hexagon...)

Ideas? Comments? Should I just dig a hole and quit modeling alltogether? ;)

 eyes wider apart
nose smaller
open the eyes more
less cheekbone
narrower mouth

 Definitely the eyes...
Maybe a bit more "Button" nose

Looky Here

Take a look at my avatar.  That should tell you everything you need to know. 

 Modeling  the human face is probably one of the most difficult things to model, even if you are going for stylized.  Keep at it!  ^ ^

 Great input :)

Interesting with the "narrower mouth" - I made it a lot more narrow recently when I made the whole jaw/cheek part smaller - and I preferred the wider mouth L

The nose definitely needs work I agree there - noses are a lot more tricky to model than I thought... at least when they need to be CUTE as well L

It doesn't strike me as cute.   Without the nose it could move toward cute,
but the nose just makes it look old.

I remember reading that studies had determined that "cute" is characterized by facial symmetry and somehow childlike features, but I don't know if any such study was performed, or how scientifically accurate the conclusions would be.

I think the face looks a bit like it's frowning or angry.  I would try to make it look cheerful and "open" in the default.  

Quote - I remember reading that studies had determined that "cute" is characterized by facial symmetry and somehow childlike features, but I don't know if any such study was performed, or how scientifically accurate the conclusions would be.

http://www.beautycheck.de/cmsms/

Beautycheck is an interesting link. Whilst the face presented as an example is by no means ugly, neither is it that of a stunning beauty, IMHO. Of course the old saying "beauty is in the eye of the beholder", has a deep resonance of truth. Symmetry is a contributing factor to to the perseption of beauty, but I have also seen faces that are asymmetrical, or even badly scarred on one side, that I would still consider as stunningly beautiful.

Whilst symmetry does play a part, I think Beautycheck places a totally unrealistic emphasis on that aspect. Beauty is a  much deeper and incredibly more complex phenomenon than just symmetry alone.

Just a few things I think might help (some of these might have been listed already, these are just my random thoughts):
Eyes further apart (about one eye-width between them; they look closer right now)
Eyes flatter on the bottom and more rounded on top.
More of a smooth bridge on the nose (right now it looks like she's wrinkling her nose because of the crease around it)
Smaller cheeks
Maybe spread the entire face out a bit? (Make the eyes, nose, and mouth farther apart from each other)
Ears a little smaller and higher
Add eyebrows (even if you just have to scribble them on in a paint shop program for a preview image; eyebrows can make a huge difference in the appearance of a face)
Add a neck (even if it's just a quick cylinder. Again, that can make a huge difference in a face's appearance)
Maybe make the head a little taller in relation to its width? Not sure about this one, but it might be something to try.

Don't give up--I think you're off to a great start

 Somewhat off topic, but the title of this thread when i first saw it reminded me of the "Cult of Cute" thread which i thought i read here on R.  But after searching for it I could not find it x.x

I think -  whats great  about your figure's head is - its wide and short,   that's  cute.

Also - the ears  could not have been situated in  a better way  than  you  made them -  awesome ears.

I have been  wrestling with your same question for quite a while now  while building my  figure's head  ( pictured).

I want her to  be cute>

And one thing that  jumps  out, based on  my recent experiences with trying to  mak a "cute": face is -  its in  the nose and upper lip.

Not the eyes.

Your head  has a thing going on  that  mine did until  i changed it.

I think the corners of the nose are too  high  and it looks like she is smelling something unpleasant.

the bottom plane of the nose needs to  be on  a level  plane  with the  ground  or else she will look like she is n grimmacing, or smirking, or  what have  you.

back  to the eyes ,   your eyes  are a very  good  size, but  i  would  bring the eyeballs down  so  that  the iris  just  barely skirts the line of the upper eyelid , i think  Les  sees this in  his comment to  bring the bottom  eyelid  up.

What makes "cute" ? ...
Puppies of course, and they're still pretty cute when they grow up :)

perhaps some smoothing of the polys on the cheeks...that being said, it's better than I can do...;)

Before you decide what you think, please keep in mind that:

• It's not yet UV-mapped so any textures are simply material zones, that is among other things the cause of the odd lips.
• The eyes are fixed at the moment, so they're a bit staring.

It is straight out of Hexagon (although for some reason my eye-material zones won't transfer so I remade those with the grouping tool...) and imported into Poser for rendering and adding of hair.

But.. I think it's a lot better...

So.. am I on the right track towards "cute" at all?

Since I'm going for "Boo" cute.. what do you think? I don't want a dwarf nor a japanese chibi, more like a western chibi cartoon type... 

ok, your second one is much closer to cute than the first one.  First one is creepy mad scientist kid, not cute at all.  The last one is looking really good .

something is  bugging me about your eye sockets

I think you  are allowing for too  much  "real estate"  for eyelids.

they  ought  to  be way  subtle -  give more real  estate to the curve of the cheek  approaching the bottom lid  and on  the top  give   more real  estate to  the curving in  of the brow ridge.

(the mesh in  yellow is the head from  my earlier post)

 Good point, Santicor.. I will see if I can incorporate that! :)

nicer curve on  the top  edge of the cheek  line, too !

 i would just  rotate the bottom plane of the nose on  X  so  we dont have to totally look  up  the characters  nostrils - and then  IMHO  i think at that point you  have achieved  'CUTE"

also .... she can open  her eyes  wide  like in the earlier version,  i thought that  was OK !

Now that you  have  smoothed and prettied up  the eye sockets  her eyes can  get  super wide open !

 LOL But the smoothed eyelids emerged BECAUSE I closed the eyes a little. I can open them with a morph later though I guess....

And the nostrils. I agree, the nose should be rotated a little... thing is (as it is visible at the hexagon pic above) when I mess with the cheeks, I mess with the nostrils, too...

so that will likely also be a morph whenever it's moving on to the next stage...

Right now I'm ready to look for tutorials on how to make fingers. I had one, once.. but lost it.. and my current tries.. aren't .. good...

LOL But the smoothed eyelids emerged BECAUSE I closed the eyes a little.

OK..... going to  the taboo of all taboo  comments now........

more POLYS   !!!!!!

LOL !!!

 yea but I think there's a fair amound of polys.. it's just the way Hexagon treats them that makes it.. different :)

I'm certain I can open the eyes further with a morph :)

Trekkie ,smart thinkin - you  just  inspired me to  build the model with the mesh  having eyes half closed. That  way  for open eyes , you  only have to  morph the eyelids  a bit,  and for closed eyes,  you only have to  morph in the other direction a bit -

.....as opposed to  eyes totally open as the zero  position,  where the eyes closed would require a larger amount to morphing to  the eyelids

You really want to fix that messy topo before you get into making morphs or UVs etc.

And btw.. I think I've got the overall shape ready now. I like this version very much...

As I hoped, (s)he's easy enough to morph, this took me less than 5 minutes, including loading into Poser ect..

Quote - Messy topo? What's wrong with it and where and how do I fix it?

Concentric circles around the eyes, mouth and nose like this:

This will not only get rid of the stretching artifacts but will morph in very natural ways.

 Ah. I did make some around the mouth and eyes,  they're there :)

I've always wondered how you get that sort of spiral effect btw? (on your example at the side ending at the ear)

Keep in mind that I'm box-modeling everything, this did start out as a simple cube :)

Cute=Soft. Get rid of creases and sharpness in the features at every possible opportunity.

You're really getting somewhere, TrekkieGrrrl! The first version looked scary, but now you've got something.

Something weird going on there in the upper lip area tho... things seem to be sticking out where they shouldn't and receding where they shouldn't.

Other than that, I think she'll be alright once fuller smoothing/rounding effects are applied. I likee.

 Yes there's something odd at that lip. I plan to remove it in Blacksmith, it's great for smoothing out areas and I need that for the morphs anyway.

I've grouped it now and as soon as I feel like it I'll make a Phi-file and see if it moves even slightly as I want it to, or I need to subdivide it further... It's only 16000 vertices so it's low rez - but then again... I like low rez whenever it works.

Something that puzzles me is that Blacksmith reports some non-symmetric issues.. and it's modeled 100% with symmetry on.. 

I remember seeing something about a program or something that could check for inconsistent symmetry.. can anyone remember what it was called?