The making of 'Lecter' By Hossein Afzali

Professional artist, Hossein Afzali, reveals how he created this 3D likeness of Dr Hannibal Lecter using 3ds Max, ZBrush, Unfold3D, Photoshop and V-Ray...

This is just a brief making of I have prepared about my first experience in creating a realistic head character and capturing a celebrity likeness. The portrait is of the great actor Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins (Dr. Hannibal Lecter) around age 66, according to my reference images.

Base mesh modeling

I started by creating a base mesh in 3ds Max, using 1,392 polygons. I used several reference images to get to a general form. I tried to follow zbro‘s base mesh edge loop for topology as I found it so clean.

Using references to get a general form of the head

Upping the subdivisions

I imported the OBJ file into ZBrush and increased the polycount to 5,652 (SDiv2) in order to capture more detail. I considered the main facial proportions in this level too, with the Symmetry off. 

Moving into ZBrush and increasing the subdivisions to create more detail

More detail

I kept on sculpting and capturing all the details (except the skin pores). When working on a celebrity head model, we usually face a common problem which is the difference in FOV of our reference images. As we use Google to source images, almost all of those photos were taken with different lenses, like Normal, Tele or with different levels of zoom and with different distances from the subject. So it's always recommended to collect those reference images that have been taken under similar circumstances. 

I had this problem a lot during the project and I would have to change the Angle of View in ZBrush to 25, 15 and sometimes 5.

In this image I combined the head model with the main reference image in order to check proportions and compare its feel and look. This way I could find out where I was going and which areas still needed to be modified.

Checking the proportion of the face

Pores

This image below shows the alpha maps that I used to create the skin pores. Except the one that looks like leathery skin
(this is Leathery Skin88), I designed the rest of them in ZBrush and Photoshop.

Some of the alpha maps used to create the pore detail

Hair

I used FiberMesh, GroomHairShort and the Move brush to create and comb the hair, eyebrows and eyelashes. I also used layers to control the intensity of the brushes.

Adding hair to the model

Clothing

For clothes I referred to a scene of the Hannibal movie where Doctor Lecter is talking to Clarice in a mall. I modeled a base mesh in 3ds Max and sculpted the details in ZBrush. I didn't work on pockets as I wanted to get a close render at the end. 

For the T-shirt neckline, I got a duplicate of it in ZBrush and created a regular and clean topology in a mid-level using a Topology brush, then exported that to 3ds Max, extruded those tiny polygons, exported back to ZBrush and projected the new changes on the main mesh.

I used both Unfold3D and 3ds Max to create and edit the UV co-ordinates.

Adding the clothes inspired by the Hannibal movie

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Skin shaders

I exported 16-bit displacement maps and started to get some test renders in 3ds Max to be sure that it was working just like ZBrush.

To create the skin shader, I first changed my unit setup to centimeter and calculated the size of the head. I Googled Anthony Hopkins's height and found out he is 5? 9? (174 cm) tall. So 174 cm divided by 7.5, Head = 23.2 cm for the head size. Obviously it was an estimated size but really helped me to set the SSS parameters closer to reality.

This is just a test render with V-ray and VrayfastSSS2. I simply used a V-Ray Dome light with a HDRI map in this scene. I haven't used any reflection and scatter radius maps yet.

Figuring out the size of the head, and fitting the shader proportions

Light test render

This image below shows another test render, this time using two layers of reflections and one V-Ray Sphere Light to see how the SSS acts under a single light. I also used another VRayFastSSS2 material for the eyes with a V-Ray Plane Light assigned only to the corneas. The Global Illumination is off for now. 

I recommend you study an article called 'Rendering human skin using a multi-layer reflection model' by Ling Li and Carmen So-ling Ngthat. I found it really useful to get a good understanding of human skin simulation. 

Adding some lights to the scene for the test render

Color map

I both projected textures and polypainted in ZBrush to get a decent result. I then exported a color map out of ZBrush, opened that in Photoshop, added more details, modified HSL and reduced the intensity of reflections in some areas. I also considered a scatter radius map to control SSS effect in areas where it was too much, like ears and wrinkles. 

This head is just after the modifications.

The color map

More lighting

I then added three lights to the scene – two as rim lights and one as a cornea reflection, including a HDRI map.

A second test render of the lighting

More lighting

Here is my finalized color map of the head.

The final color map

The final lighting

The final lighting setup included seven V-Ray Lights. At this point, I also turned the Global Illumination on.

The final lighting set up

The final render

The clothes are a falloff map and the hairs are a simple standard material. I added some blood stains to the clothes and got my final render (beauty pass).

For the background, I just created some particles using the wg_dust_particles brush in Photoshop, and then blended that with a cloud layer and my scene background render that I created in 3ds Max.

The scene background

The final image

And finally, I did some color correction over the top of all the layers, and it was done. 

The final image