Face over

NOTE: When I reduced the rez on the image the photoshop aliasing filter fubar'd her face so I included a closeup to show what her face really looks like.

This is what I'd like her to end up looking like. I stole the face off another illustration partially by design. As much as I enjoyed designing and rendering the original head for this project, I've always preferred and wished that this particular face I did previously would be used instead. The idea of a Caucasian face with Asian eyes wasn't really that compelling for me, a mere cosmetic treatment. Instead I found this particular face has a depth of character to it that the other face didn't. The big eyes are a bit caricatured but they don't look too manga/anime-ish either. There's a depth to her stare that speaks of hardship yet the rest of her face is that of a youthfulness that she still retains.

I'm still playing with the idea that she wears some kind of toque (maybe she's Canadian, lol). Other personal identifiers might be an interesting hairdo, a partial perm, bangs, etc, but it's got to be simple, nothing too high maintenance. Kids these days like to color their hair all sorts of colors, a white or red highlight might be interesting. I was thinking of dreds, this being an urban theme. Dreds are considered cool, but aren't always considered pretty. The one thing about dreds is that they speak of alternative or counter culture which is what I want in this character. So the challenge is to get those dreds in without destroying her traditional type of beauty. Maybe dreds with colored highlights?

Another note on process. I basically skipped over the ideation phase from quick sketch right to the final rendering stage. Basically I was doing final render as I was designing. That and my natural doddling contributed to an extremely long process, but I'm rather impressed with the result.

I've also been thinking of a pet or mechanical sidekick. More on that later.