After all I decided to continue modeling on Ara before doing the rigging on both models.
I was maybe too optimistic or naive (or both) about modeling Ara. I soon trashed my first try after recognizing that there are some huge gaps in my knowledge and experience.
It’s just different to model something which exists in the real world, where any minor mistake done is immediately obvious.
I did some studying of existing head topologies and looked at a lot of reference pictures, both anatomy and normal pics. I even used my hands to feel/grasp the anatomy of my own head as well of my daughters.
With all this done I started from scratch, this time using the topology I studied from the ‘simple’ model Angela Guenette from the Durian team was doing as test drive for blender 2.5. This helped a lot and gave me some good starters.
Its still a lot of work and tweaking. As of now Ara is not ‘perfect’, but she goes in a direction, where I recognize her as the girl I want to see in the short. And this is encouraging.
See here for a wire of the current state
The image on top is just a quick render with some fake eyes and some very crude polygon hair, just to have a better idea.
