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Character Facial Sculpting

Character Facial Sculpting

A 10-week course in which students will learn the anatomy of the head and what makes the portrait tell a story and makes it “alive”
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Overview Trailers Gallery Instructors Pricing Benefits Testimonials

Learn to sculpt the human face

Learn to sculpt the human face
During this course, students will learn what makes the face look as it does—the underlying structures of the skull, muscles, fat tissue, and other structures such as glands which create and affect the forms of the face. Without a base mesh, but starting from scratch to get a better understanding of all the layers laid on top of each other. Once that knowledge is established, we will go deeper into what makes the portrait alive and tell a story.
Registration Now Open
Registration Period
Oct 09, 2024 - Feb 01, 2025
Course Start
Jan 27, 2025

Course Format

Standard

Skills Level

Intermediate

Duration

10 weeks

Q&A

Once a week

Feedback

Individual recordings

Lecture Type

Pre-recorded
Assignment
Due each week. Expect to spend 10-20 hrs/wk viewing lectures, Q&A, and assignments
PREREQUISITES
Intermediate sculpting or drawing knowledge. Course Pre-req: Intro to Production Modeling, Zbrush for Concept & Iteration, and Anatomy for Production
MATERIALS
Zbrush, a graphics tablet with a digital pen — no mice allowed :)

The more you know, the better.

Introduction | Going over anatomical references of the skull and neck bones, and explaining the benefits of learning what is “under the hood”
Further examining anatomical references of cartilage, eyes, glands
Adding muscles to the scene, and fat tissue
Building a generic face by laying the skin layer on top of the previously created layers
To get a better understanding of portrait sculpting, one portrait won’t cut it, so we will create a new one.
Retopology of the bust and projecting back the details onto the new topology mesh. Clean topology will enable more efficient detailing, and later posing and expressions.
Final touches and tweaks of the portrait
Polypainting the color map
Sculpting the hair (or fibermesh or xgen)
For this lesson, retopology will have a big impact, as the head will be much easier to pose. Rendering different passes in Zbrush and bringing them into Photoshop for compositing into a final image.

Trailers

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Course trailer

STUDENT GALLERY

Bringing out the best in talent

Dmitrij Leppee
Lead Character Artist
LECTURES BY Dmitrij Leppee
Course Start: Jan 27, 2025
Coming from a traditional drawing and graphics background as well as classical animation, Dmitrij, discovered his interest in 3D (ZBrush in particular) 9 years ago, which he pursued on his own. For the majority of his professional career he has worked as a medical illustrator, but never abandoned his love for portraying people, only transferring it to a new medium. He has worked on all kinds of projects; models for print, animation, commercials, movies and games. He currently works as a Lead Character Artist at Digital Dimension.
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Instructor's Gallery

Game Art
Game Art
Game Art
Dmitrij Leppee
Lead Character Artist
LECTURES BY Dmitrij Leppee
Course Start: Apr 18, 2025
Coming from a traditional drawing and graphics background as well as classical animation, Dmitrij, discovered his interest in 3D (ZBrush in particular) 9 years ago, which he pursued on his own. For the majority of his professional career he has worked as a medical illustrator, but never abandoned his love for portraying people, only transferring it to a new medium. He has worked on all kinds of projects; models for print, animation, commercials, movies and games. He currently works as a Lead Character Artist at Digital Dimension.
show more

Instructor's Gallery

Game Art
Game Art
Game Art

GET ONE YEAR ACCESS AND TRANSFORM YOUR ARTISTIC JOURNEY

Take your CGMA learning further with CGMA+, a companion add-on featuring over 70 new, stand-alone workshops—more than 250 hours of content you won’t find in your core CGMA program. You’ll learn from multiple instructors, each with a unique style, so you can see how different artists approach the same subject in various ways. This additional material builds on what you’re already studying, broadening your perspective and helping you look at topics from fresh angles. It’s a straightforward way to strengthen your studies and boost your skills.

PRICING SCHEDULE

Even though our courses are the most affordable for the quality of education, these finance options allow you to focus on your goals instead of the barriers that keep you from reaching them.

3x Payments

$332.67

2x Payments

$499

Full payment

$998

Spring TERM REGISTRATION Now Open
Jan 30, 2025 - Apr 21, 2025
COURSE BEGINS on Jan 27, 2025
Character Facial Sculpting

What makes this learning experience unique?

PERSONALIZED FEEDBACK

Receive personalized feedback on all assignments from the industry’s top professionals.

LIFETIME ACCESS

Enjoy lifetime access to the spectrum of course content, including lectures, live Q&As, and feedback sessions.

CERTIFICATION

Show off your Certification of Completion when you turn in 80% of course assignments.

FLEXIBLE LEARNING

Learn anywhere, anytime, and at your own pace with flexible, online course scheduling.

Testimonials

By going over the fundamentals of the face and each layer that comes on top of it, this course has helped me get a greater understanding of the work methods, shape language, and observation skills for making faces.

Kenny

Helped gain more confidence when doing a facial sculpt, the knowledge gained from the course decreased the guessing when sculpting and when translating references to 3D

Jose

I attended a 3D school before but through this course I learned so much more technical stuff, it really helped that we had such an experienced instructor!

Miria

Always available to answer questions thoroughly and in-depth. Seemed to really care about the issues students had. Honest feedback.

Felix

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