How to Model a Female Head in Blender

Posted on by

Here is a great tutorial created by Michael Jones, showing how to model a female head. It’s not a time lapse, actually the whole tutorial has more than one hour of video!

This is the description of the tutorial by Michael Jones:

I have always wanted to make a good video tutorial, and finally had the inspiration and time, to make just that. So I have released a fairly lengthy video tutorial on how to model a female head in blender. I am planning on making more video tutorials for this character covering modeling the body, clothes and accessories, uv mapping and creating textures, creating hair, rigging, shapekeys, and of course animating.

You can find all four videos listed here. Have fun!

Share this article

    • jayh

      Wow – first post! Models look great but I can’t see the video because I’m at work – Are these poly-by-poly or box modeled?

    • http://rexprime.com rexprime

      yeah i ran into this video when i was searching vimeo yesterday, its a good box modelling aproach

    • ccherrett

      interesting. I have been modeling the vertex by vertex style. This was informative.

    • jayh

      Sweet – love box modeling myself and think Blender is a fully capable tool for it – although I think it has a reputation otherwise but hopefully these videos show that it’s possible…

    • solhex

      I enjoyed this tutorial, however if you are new to blender and modelling I’d give this one a miss. It’s an over the shoulder session and not really a tutorial. We are told during the video that G is for grab and that CTRL+N is for flipping normals, but aside from that there’s little information and not much else said apart from “tweaking”.

      That said though it was interesting to see another aproach to handling edge loops which I wish could have been explained better for those begining modelling. It may also be quite difficult for a newbie to follow along during the nose section of the video as that part got a little messy. For a first tutorial though I am very impressed and definitely looking forward to the following chapters. Well done!

    • Dusty

      Great! Will watch it now!! Wooot!

    • ATB

      Not showing!

      Cannot access video files on vimeo :-(.

    • http://projecttall.blogspot.com/ Studio Stockwell

      Great work! Thanks for sharing. 8-) Is there anyway of downloading the videos?

      Peace

    • http://quixotic7.com QuixoticSmile

      Thanks for the comments!

      The head is Box modeled, I hardly ever model things poly by poly anymore, Although I’ll occasionally use poly by poly techniques. Blender is a fully capable tool for box modeling, and I have seen very few tutorials on box modeling in blender, and thus I thought I’d share my techniques. The main thing that would make blender better for box modeling would be actual n-gon support, as it can be kind of annoying everytime you cut diagnally accross a face and it attempts to make a bunch of quads, or when you just want to add edges to one section, you have to delete the surrounding faces. But Blender has surprisingly good modeling tools, they are better than Maya’s!

      Solhex: You are right, this is probably not the best beginer tutorial, modeling a head is kind of a more difficult subject, as any organic model is more than just modeling good topology, it takes a good knowledge of anatomy, and it’s much like sculpting with clay. I apologize if I did not explain the edgeloops enough, and I must admit when I was just starting learning 3d, edgeloops were a very tricky subject that confused the hell out of me. I tried to explain why I was cutting in certain loops in certain areas, and what I needed to do to get the topology I wanted. If there’s any specific questions you have, please ask away and I will try my best to explain them in greater detail.

      ATB: Is it a filter problem? I’m sorry you can’t access them.

      BTW, I uploaded the blender files for anyone who wants them [URL]http://www.mediafire.com/?qzybjazbkvm[/URL]

    • http://freegamearts.tuxfamily.org JKM

      Not exactly a tutorial, but I have released this free (GPL or CCbySA) model recently which might help too:

      http://gameartsguild.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=168

      Not done in Blender though (Wings3D).

    • http://quixotic7.com QuixoticSmile

      JKM: that is really well modeled, great topology too! Thanks for sharing!

    • http://www.montagestudio.org Jonathan Williamson

      QuixoticSmile: nice to see more tutorials covering the human head in blender :) However, my main comment is that it’s painfully slow and not very informative for newer users. Like solhex said, it really helps to mention the hotkeys and menus and such you’re using throughout the modeling process. This really helps to get the concepts and techniques across, particularly for newer users. Even though the the female head is more of an advanced subject, I feel the tutorial should still be accessible, and understandable for new users, even if it’s out of their own skill-set.

      Having said that, great job on the modeling side of things, nice mesh flow :)

    • Dude

      Great job QuixoticSmile, beautiful topology. I could tell from just the little image above it has a real nice flow. The heads I model all suffer from chronic 5 point syndrome, (especially on the cheeks). I was looking for a good tut to help figure out what I was doing wrong. This has help me a lot already, Thanks!

    • http://www.FreezingMoon.org Dread Knight

      Neat! :-)

    • ccherrett

      Jonathan,

      Think you might have a bias? :)

    • Cracker

      Use wings now for ngon (atleast its also free) … and when blender supports ngon we can switch to it…

      box modeling in blender without ngon is like

      underwear without elastic
      soda with no gas
      …..

    • ATB

      @QuixoticSmile: Is there a way to download the vids?

    • BlenderLovingSquirrel2

      ur technique is very cool man thanks very much for sharing! I learned!

      ATB, real player let’s you download almost any video you can watch online

    • http://quixotic7.com QuixoticSmile

      ATB: Yes, if you view the videos directly on Vimeo there is a download link on the bottom right.

      Cracker: I haven’t used wings in ages, but I do all my modeling in Silo 2, which isn’t free, but is quite cheap, and is a very clean, simple yet powerful modeling application, I would compare it to Modo, which is a great modeling program, but I think it’s becoming too bloated and feature-filled for my purposes. Like wings, I like a program that does just modeling, and does it extremely well. Modo has hopes of becoming a full-featured 3d application, and it’s too expensive. However, I purposefully decided to do this video tutorial using box modeling techniques in blender, to prove that blender is a very capable, free, modeling program, and to contribute to the community for such an amazing piece of software!

      Johnathan: Perhaps for my next video tutorial, I’ll try to gear it more towards new users, although it can be very difficult to make a tutorial for new users as it’s very difficult to put myself in that mindset. I admire anyone who can write a great and informative tutorial for beginners, it’s tough!

      Everyone else: Thanks, I’m glad you could learn something from my tutorial!

    • Cracker

      Can you do some kind of refrences to toontje’s thread http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=93651 in your next tutorial. Because that can be used to explain box modeling from beginner to advanced level.

      It can be even be made DVD tutorial.

    • ATB

      @QuixoticSmile: I meant download OUTSIDE vimeo, since I cannot access video’s on vimeo!

    • Marcus

      @ATB: Why can’t you access videos on vimeo???

    • gaalgergely

      nice box modeling tut.
      its amazing how fast one can determine the edgeflows.
      i`ve learnt some new tricks, thanks!

    • ATB

      @Marcus: I don’t know video’s simply NOT showing! YouTube does, Vimeo doesn’t. Go figure! -shrug-

      I use IE6 on W98

    • http://www.blendernation.com/2008/06/17/how-to-model-a-female-head-in-blender/ sherif

      ooooooh >> thank you man
      i am very happy ^_^

    • Thomas

      I agree with Jonathan, It is very slow, and not in a helpful way.

    • Jeremy

      Dude please put this back up. I was in the middle of it and now the link is busted…please please put it back.

    • http://quixotic7.com QuixoticSmile

      Jeremy, you can find the video on my website Quixotic7.Com or on Vimeo.com I’ve been on hiatus from Blender for a few months, but I will be jumping back in to it soon! I will be creating more tutorials in the future, speedier, and straight to the point. Stay tuned.

    • LUBA

      this is nice i like it, i would some turtorials for creating the hole
      body in blender

    • Pingback: Dica de Tutorial: Modelando uma cabeça feminina no Blender | Select Game