Early in 2007, I began sculpting a realistic human face. The result can be seen in the two protagonists of “Istanbul”: obviously human but creepy in a less obvious way. The hard-to-identify creepiness came from the concept of the uncanny valley, which states that the more realistic a creation becomes the more unsettling it is to look at (up to a point).

Face modeling in Istanbul.

The long climb to the other side of the uncanny valley is what persuaded me to not focus on realistic character for Eros, despite being a film which focused more on the human condition then my others. But now I am brave enough to climb, and eager to make realistic human caricatures, even if they are secondary to the robots in my next film.

I started with a deeper understanding of mesh modeling — a character in “Istanbul” began his existence as a cube witch was deformed and sub-surfaced into a face. This girl’s face began as a simple, tiny plain on the top of her nose. The focus here is of the facial features, not the shape of the head as a whole.

Notice the Natalie Portman reference image. Below, the nose begins to take shape.

I’m editing the face from two reference images: one from the font, one from the side. All three dimensions are represented.

The action is focused around the nose, mouth and eyes; this gives the loop structure an easier-to-animate quality since most complicated parts of the face contain the most vertexes.

This method is much more intimate since it focuses on curves not cubes.

Notice how most of the faces are squares and not triangles, which cause problems in the animation.

Notice the difference between these lips and the ones from Istanbul.

From the side. It’s smooth!

That is all I have so far for my next, unnamed film. These more realistic humans should provide sufficient contest with the robotic protagonists.