Yep, here I am again. It's been over a month since I first posted these WIPs, and... they're still not done. |D But I'm looking for tips once more. If you remember me (or not), these are two bird fursuit heads, the first heads I've made. One is a barn owl for someone we will call Aki, and the other is a tufted puffin for me.
I'll start off with the barn owl again, since I did that last time. Only problem is that I've barely made any progress, because I ran into a problem. When I was starting to work on the neck padding and looking at pictures of barn owls at the same time, I noticed the eyes are pretty big and low on the face in comparison to those of a real barn owl, and I'm trying to make this head mostly realistic. In the photos you can see one paper "dummy eye," which I drew out to illustrate the actual size/shape of what I want the eye to be. There's a little almond-shaped doodle on this dummy eye that represents where the eye of the wearer actually goes. Since the eye of the viewer is rather low, I've considered just moving the whole mask-part down the face of the barn owl to fix the eye proportion problem (and the top of the head would be less flat, too).
Suggestions implemented: smoother face, bigger beak, fill in the gap behind the mask.
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The last drawing is a redline I did of a real barn owl face over the actual mask so I could see how my proportions are going...
Now onto the puffin. I've put more work into it since I last posted, including adding the lower jaw, nubs for tufts (:D), smoothing out the beak, and changing the general head shape a little. Also, no more foam cylinder now that I've figured out what the heck I'm doing!~
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Some of these photos make the beak look a little bigger than it actually is. :P
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As you can see in the above two photos, the face padding is uneven. (It's higher on our right side - part of that is the head maybe being tilted on the styrofoam head, but it's more likely me being sloppy and needing to fix it.) However, I was working only on the side on our left so far. I was wondering how far it would need to stick out to look good; puffins do have some cheeks but they blend into the head a lot and aren't like big fluffy wolf cheeks. On the other hand, I've seen a lot about how fur can hide features that aren't prominent enough. I was wondering how far I should trim down the padding so it looks like a puffin but not like a flat face?
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Above we have another redline doodle. After looking at where the tufts attach to the face I thought maybe the nub is in the wrong place? Also, I wasn't sure how big it was supposed to be. Tell me if I have to trim it down a little. xD Also, I was going for a more timid expression, since I don't want anything too smiley with a realistic puffin, but it's looking a bit more disgusted right now. May just be because of how the beak hangs open when it's on the styrofoam head, but some suggestions on how to make her look shy and not disgusted would be nice.~
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I received a suggestion for implementing taxidermy-style eyes. This is a great idea, and I think it would look good! But I don't have the means to make my own taxidermy eyes right now and I had trouble finding anyone who sells eyes that are five centimeters in diameter, as my dummy eye is. (I think the largest I found was around 3.5 or 4 cm...) I'll probably do a little more research into making my own taxidermy-style eyes so I can get this to look good. I was originally just going to slap some buckram on there and color it like eyes, but first of all it would look toony and second I like the way the taxidermy eyes look. |D
aaand comment time.
I'll start off with the barn owl again, since I did that last time. Only problem is that I've barely made any progress, because I ran into a problem. When I was starting to work on the neck padding and looking at pictures of barn owls at the same time, I noticed the eyes are pretty big and low on the face in comparison to those of a real barn owl, and I'm trying to make this head mostly realistic. In the photos you can see one paper "dummy eye," which I drew out to illustrate the actual size/shape of what I want the eye to be. There's a little almond-shaped doodle on this dummy eye that represents where the eye of the wearer actually goes. Since the eye of the viewer is rather low, I've considered just moving the whole mask-part down the face of the barn owl to fix the eye proportion problem (and the top of the head would be less flat, too).
Suggestions implemented: smoother face, bigger beak, fill in the gap behind the mask.
The last drawing is a redline I did of a real barn owl face over the actual mask so I could see how my proportions are going...
Now onto the puffin. I've put more work into it since I last posted, including adding the lower jaw, nubs for tufts (:D), smoothing out the beak, and changing the general head shape a little. Also, no more foam cylinder now that I've figured out what the heck I'm doing!~
Some of these photos make the beak look a little bigger than it actually is. :P
As you can see in the above two photos, the face padding is uneven. (It's higher on our right side - part of that is the head maybe being tilted on the styrofoam head, but it's more likely me being sloppy and needing to fix it.) However, I was working only on the side on our left so far. I was wondering how far it would need to stick out to look good; puffins do have some cheeks but they blend into the head a lot and aren't like big fluffy wolf cheeks. On the other hand, I've seen a lot about how fur can hide features that aren't prominent enough. I was wondering how far I should trim down the padding so it looks like a puffin but not like a flat face?
Above we have another redline doodle. After looking at where the tufts attach to the face I thought maybe the nub is in the wrong place? Also, I wasn't sure how big it was supposed to be. Tell me if I have to trim it down a little. xD Also, I was going for a more timid expression, since I don't want anything too smiley with a realistic puffin, but it's looking a bit more disgusted right now. May just be because of how the beak hangs open when it's on the styrofoam head, but some suggestions on how to make her look shy and not disgusted would be nice.~
I received a suggestion for implementing taxidermy-style eyes. This is a great idea, and I think it would look good! But I don't have the means to make my own taxidermy eyes right now and I had trouble finding anyone who sells eyes that are five centimeters in diameter, as my dummy eye is. (I think the largest I found was around 3.5 or 4 cm...) I'll probably do a little more research into making my own taxidermy-style eyes so I can get this to look good. I was originally just going to slap some buckram on there and color it like eyes, but first of all it would look toony and second I like the way the taxidermy eyes look. |D
aaand comment time.