I Made a Face from Scratch (Sort of)

I made a face from scratch in Krita. Not quite though, I did have to bring in elements from other pictures to make it happen, but I now have something that I can bring into Blender and use for projection painting, or UV map in Anim8or but also I can see the outcome of what it may look like in the end. But before I discuss how I did it, I just want to discuss how weird this is. The image is mostly symmetrical, but I have added asymmetry in other areas, such as the cheeks. I find when you stare at the asymmetrical areas, the almost look symmetrical, and where you stare at the symmetrical areas, you start to find asymmetry.

Also, in the end, although I'll probably still add a watermark, I wanted you to be able to see if you could play around with the image yourself. So I deleted most of the layers and hope to upload the base and eyelids for you to be able to start off with, if you want to do something similar.

From the Base to the Eyes

I started off with a picture of a bald woman and the first thing I did was centre the image, then symmetrize it. From there, alternating between the clone tool and smart patch, I removed most of the facial features except for the bags under the eyes. I now had a base layer with which to work.

With the base layer done, I brought in the eyelids (NOTE: this primary eyelid layer is actually composed of three layers).

Too lazy to post pic of layers

At their original position they looked low, so I moved them a tad higher until I was happy. Now it was time to bring in the eyeballs, which is easier said than done. Prior to this, I had taken a screenshot of an eyeball (someone else had done) in Blender and now was the time to use it. I brought it in under the eyelid layer and scaled it to about the right size.

Now, to position the iris isn't as easy as it would seem. I positioned it to the centre and then a bit out to the ears, then a bit up. This mimics the way the optic nerve pulls the eyeball and sits in the skull (I got the idea from reading up on forensics, and from Disney Labs Experiments on Youtube). Then, because it wasn't quite to scale, I had to use the clone stamp to expand the sclera (white) of the eyeball. It now fitted, but didn't look right.

This is what you'll find in the free Open Raster File

I decided to look through my iris folder for one that would 'pop out'. In between the irises surrounded by white or black, I noticed one surrounded by dark blue, and I've noticed in quite a few pictures, a similar effect, so I dragged it to the middle of the workspace and removed most of the blue, just leaving a small blue sliver on the outside. I duplicated this layer, then hid this duplicate.

I blurred the iris colour a bit, then desaturated the duplicate and made it a saturate layer to tone down the colour. From there I added the highlights you typically see on the iris by hand with the soft airbrush. I now had some realistic eyes. The easy part was now over.

The Mouth and Nose

After the eyes was the mouth, and I wanted to save time and import it with the nose. Needless to say, the lips were easy but the nose was not, but, after some experimentation, I found that a maximum desaturation on that layer and then making that layer a luminosity layer made it blend with the base almost flawlessly. On top of this layer was a duplicate, inverted and made into a 'Divide Layer'.

The Rest

From there it was all about the small touches, but then, small touches are what make good work great. I added eyebrows and a second set of upper and lower eyelids so that I could see what the image might look like once it was finished. I also added teeth and hair and I wanted to bring more detail back in, as well as asymmetry, so I brought in the original image as a layer and deleted most of the extraneous detail, just leaving the chin and the cheeks. The second last thing I did was add in highlights on the cheeks. To do this, I took the forehead highlight and duplicated it, then rotated it, edited it, then mirrored it, then made it a divide layer.

Still, I wanted something that was almost neutral so, aside from making that divide layer as low as I could get away with, I duplicated the forehead highlight and made it a multiply layer.

Conclusion

I alternate between being impressed by what I've done, and thinking to myself that much, much better could be done but at the very least it's a good proof of concept. As for what to do with the image...

Primarily I just wanted to see what to do with some of the references I had built up. Besides that, I have made something that can be used as a reference in Anim8or, or with Blender's 'Projection Painting'.

Update1: I've already begun to try to see what else I can do (Work in Progress) : 

Update 2: After some constructive criticism, I've toned down the redness of the lips, so what you're seeing is not the image as it was originally

Update 3: I may yet sell this as a collection if I get desperate, but I'd rather sell them to a blockchain game (concept) that I agree with

One idea that I had (that I'm really not fond of) for making money from the image, is to build a few up with, e.g. Facial scars, goggles, etc., make a collection, and sell it/them as NFT(s). I still might explore this as an idea, if only to test out my skills and to try out some of my other picture references I have lying around like glass with bullet holes, etc. I'll keep you guys updated.