Wow, that was quick! :-) face_off: I've used the crease option. It is supposed to hold the boundaries of a mesh in place. Unfortunately, smooth sometimes ignores it. It's a hardache. Smooth can be such a big help, but it is quite a primadonna. It wants a perfect mesh. Must have four polygones around a regular vertex, two around a boundary vertex, otherwise it will do strange things. Currently, I try to avoid the seams. I think Poser internally welds the seams anyway, so a little displacement there is okay. Just not too much. At the moment, those hair problems don't bother me much. Hair can always be pulled in place by magnets. Lots of times, one has to do that, anyway (or ignore it, if one's as lazy as I am). If I were to develope a product, these would of course be important considerations. richardson: Thanks! Great tip! This should even work along the seams, if I use "crease".

I've tried to smooth out the head-neck transition, which is kind of tricky, because ZB2's smooth tool doesn't work in these areas (no continuous mesh there). I ran into all kinds of other problems, which I'm not going to bore you with.

Anyway, I worked some on the facial proportions, implementing richardson's suggestions. I think the jaw needs more work in that respect, and I pulled the ear a little bit too far back. The eyes are still too wide open, but I tried to shape the skull a little more.

As usual, I'll be happy about any comments!

Again, thanks for all the interesting and helpful comments.

face_off: Yes, you're right about the bleeding. I just noticed
it recently. I guess I should try loading the texture into ZB2 to have
a more immediate feedback for things like that.

And I agree: she looks more realistic in profile. I've got a couple of
ideas why that is. Let's see...

gps: Congratulations, you've got it. Franka Potente is my
reference. The likeness isn't very good, I think, but maybe it will
become better over time.

Yes, I think that asymmetry is very important to make faces
realistic. I don't dare to introduce any asymmetries, yet, though,
because I'm afraid it will make subsequent modification steps harder.

Acadia: Well, I guess there is some similarity in the eyes. And
eyes, of course, are very important. She's probably as close to
Zeta-Jones as she is to Potente, so I can't say you're wrong. :-) But
I don't see much of Mulgrew in her. Be it as it is. Most important to
me is that she looks good, and as real as I can get her with Poser.

4blueyes: Yes, I am indeed not completely happy with that
area. I'll see what I can do about it (eventually).

egaeus: I am using Poser 6 and the HyperREAL texture by
Morris. I am also using face_off's script that goes with the
texture. Some of the lighting tricks I also learned from Paul
(face_off), other's are my own. Or, rather, standard things I learned
by watching a lot of TV. :-)

richardson: So many little things... I must say, I really
admire your sharp eye and your knowledge of anatomy. I've got myself a
nice reference book now, so I'll see what I can do. Can you explain
again about the eye orbital and the eyebrow? I'm not sure I
understand.

By the way, I've just noticed that her eyebrows are too high up. Maybe
that's what the problem is. In the photos I looked at, you really
don't see any indentation between the upper lids and the brows,
because her brows are rather low and her upper lids pretty fleshy. But
in my pictures, the brows are much higher, and so there should be one.

Acadia, that's interesting. No, she wasn't ment to be either of them. Actually, I used an actress as a reference, but unfortunately I didn't manage to achieve a very good likeness. It still helped me a lot with the realism, I think.

Here's the next version. The chin cleft was softened a little and the nose bridge widened. These were both things I hadn't noticed before.

I was planning to do the neck together with the rest of the body when I am happy with the head. Sorry, I should have mentioned that. The strange bumps at the transition are really irritating. Here I have hidden them a bit in postwork.

Other modifications: eye area refined, brows and lower lip slightly reshaped, chin broader and with a sharper edge towards the lower lip, tiny fix where ear meets cheek.

I'll do a few more small things, I guess, but overall I'm pretty happy with it now.

Next to the body...

Well, I didn't know so many programs work with Photoshop plugins now. I guess I'll give it a try, then. The feature list seems really impressive, and I've been yearning for a decent way of adding DOF.

Thanks for the link! I've been using depth maps for post DOF a few times, but without plugin support (just select by color on the depth map, then blur), so it ended up rather crude. Unfortunately, I don't use Photoshop. Does anyone know if there's a standalone program or Gimp plugin that does the same?

Thanks for the link! That is stunning artwork!

Yes, this is much closer. Actually, the first version reminded me more of Jewel Staite (Kaylee from the Firefly series and Serenity movie) than Carrie Fisher. I think the nose-cheeks transition is still more Jewel than Carrie. Maybe she just needs some more volume in that area. I think the nose could be a tiny bit bigger and the transition into the brow-forehead area smoother, almost straight. Anyway, you've got an awesome morph there and getting pretty damn close already. The one I'm currently trying to make isn't nearly as close. So you better not listen to my tips. :-)

I am afraid I will not be of much help. She's pretty close, yet I wouldn't recognize her from the morph. Hard to tell what's missing. The facial proportions look very good to me. Maybe the nose is a tiny bit too long. As the eyes are usual most important, I would concentrate on them. In your morph, I see a slight upward curve of the brows toward the middle which doesn't show on the reference photo. Also, Carrie's lower lids are fuller and the inner edges of her upper lids are curved inward rather than outward. Your morph's missing the little extra corners in which the lacrimals sit. That's all I can see so far. Hope it helps.

.

Very interesting project! I would love to have them and I was thinking about trying to make some, but I'm afraid I have neither enough time nor modelling skills. Anyway, I'm looking for good "average face" references. Where did you get the images above?

Way cool! Thanks! I've had ZBrush for a couple of weeks now, but haven't done any displacement maps with it yet. I guess now is a great time to start.

Sweet!