Harrison Ford 3D sculpt - Deckard (Blade Runner) - v2.0

Looks great! Im going to start trying to learn this programme soon. Do you have any recommendations for online tutorials?
I started with Blender's own tutorials, their "fundamentals" series for version 2.8, from their official YouTube page. Here's the first one:


I found they teach you the basics pretty well. I think I originally learned of these through All3dp.com, which also links other good tutorials. I hsould note that any tutorials you see based on versions of Blender before version 2.80 might be confusing, since version 2.80 brought about a lot of differences to the Blender UI, so it's best to stick to the newer ones.
 
I started with Blender's own tutorials, their "fundamentals" series for version 2.8, from their official YouTube page. Here's the first one:


I found they teach you the basics pretty well. I think I originally learned of these through All3dp.com, which also links other good tutorials. I hsould note that any tutorials you see based on versions of Blender before version 2.80 might be confusing, since version 2.80 brought about a lot of differences to the Blender UI, so it's best to stick to the newer ones.
Thanks! I think some of the previous tutorials Id seen on YouTube were a bit to advanced, so starting at the basics is what I need. I’ll be checking these out. And again, your sculpt is looking great!
 
Update: Starting to make this into a Deckard from Blade Runner bust. As I said before, I've been focusing on that time period of Ford, so I can still re-use this model in the future as a Han Solo or Indiana Jones of the same era, but I'm at the point where I want to work on making it specific to Blade Runner, so I'll be adding clothes, expanding out the rest of the bust and so on.

I've spent some time reshaping things to try to get back some of the things I liked in a previous version. I felt it was getting a little too rounded, particularly the jawline and around the mouth. I still have some work to do, but I feel better about where it's at. I also tried to rough in some clothing, but I think I'll need to add new models to the head rather than try to get more detail out of it. Maybe retopologize, though I haven't done that before.
HF 28 1B.png


I also did a photoshop edit, adding eyes and darkening features to look more like a B&W pic. I know I could do change the matierials' colors in Blender, and I could change the eyes by adding textures or changing the shape, but it was quicker to do in Photoshop, and also meant not messing with the 3D model file. I do save new versions of the file periodically, so I cold go back if I mess up too badly, but I still didn't want to spend time figuring it out yet. Not sure how I want the final eyes to be modeled. If I model it for 3D printing, I can't do it the same way as for 3D rendering.

HF 28 1A.png
HF 28 1A Shopped.png


The photoshop pic also helps me to see things that need to change that I might not have noticed. Like the hairline, and hair in general needs to be adjusted. I keep adjusting the lips and mouth, and I think it still needs some more work, but I feel it's getting more accurate.
 
New pics: More reshaping of the face. Biggest changes are to the hairline, mouth/lips, eyes/eybrows, as well as tweaks to the nose, jaw, cheeks and forehead. I'm at the point where it's all little changes that I'm making, which might not look like I changed much from the last update, but those little changes can have a big impact on the overall likeness. I mostly use the grab brush to make adjustments to the shape of the face. I also adjusted the shoulders/chest areas, but I'm still going probably going to have to either re-topo or add new meshes in order to have a sufficient base for detailing. My plan is to add the trenchcoat collar, and maybe add a raised arm with the blaster in hand, if I get ambitious, but that's a lot more work. I know I could probably "cheat" and download 3D files of Deckard's PKD blaster and a hand, but I'm trying to do all the work myself, so I don't want to use someone else's. I'm trying to figure out how I want to do the eyes too, if I actually sculpt in the iris and pupils.

HF 29 1.png
HF 29 2.png
 
Last edited:
Another quick update. I took some time off from this, party because I get "blocked" and not sure how to proceed. I keep feeling like I make progress at the time, but when I look back at it, I see all the flaws.
Anyway, I just spent a few minutes in this, just using the grab brush to move things around, just "eyeballing" it, rather than trying to match it up to a specific photo like I've been doing. I didn't even refer back to any reference images, I just tried to make it look like the image I have of Harrison Ford in my mind's eye. It's still not totally accurate, but I think it looks a bit closer than the last version.

Here's a side by side of the new version next to the image I used in my last post, so you can also click on the image and do a back and forth comparison if you want to.
LEFT/1st pic=NEW, RIGHT/2nd pic=OLD
HF 30 1.png
HF 29 2.png


You can see I've tried to thin his face more. While I think I'm headed in the right direction, I fell like I've lost some of the youthfulness of his face from the early 80s. Not that he was that young at the time, but I feel like my current version looks a bit older than the version I'm trying to capture.

Here's a quick color edit as well (no eyes this time):

HF 30 2.png
 
Last edited:
Another update, (hopefully) getting closer. I think I'm starting to get it closer to the appropriate age/time period.


HF 33 0.png
zHF 33 1.png
 
Once again, my perspective has changed after taking a little time away from this. Maybe it's also because I'm looking at this on my phone right now, but I feel like the left side of the face is getting closer, but the right side is way off. Maybe the slightly wonky placement of the Photoshopped eye is drawing attention to it. Whatever the reason, I need to work on the right side. The right eye area definitely needs to be adjusted, it looks like it's floating away. The whole right side may need to be pulled in too.
I just wish I could see these things when I was working on it, rather than seeing it later. When I was working on the original, clay sculpt (that I never finished), I had the same problems. I did find that looking at it in a mirror helped identify problems. Seeing it in reverse seemed to highlight the problems Maybe I need to start doing that again.
 
check measurements. Basic things like eye space from corner of eyes to the edge of the ears, typically it's one eye so 5 eyes in total across the entire head.
I always keep a side profile cut out in the center of my head, that way I never loose the proportions of the head. If you use a front view as your reference and the head is slightly tilted forward or backwards, or to the sides then the whole thing falls apart. Some people also forget the proper reference from behind at the 3quarter back view.

Looks good, keep at it and never be afraid to start over from scratch. I did around 10+ head sculpts of ewan mcgregor before I had my current final version so....
 
Update: Okay, I'm hoping my eyes don't betray me later, but I think I made some significant progress. Here's a new pic and the corresponding Photoshop edit - I tried to pay closer attention to the placement of the eyes, and I toned down the color edits since the last one seemed too distracting:

HF 33 1a.png
HF 33 1x.png


Once again, I narrowed his face more, especially working on the right side. I did use the mirror technique I mentioned to try to get a different perspective, not with an actual mirror but by flipping the rendered images. I also did more matching to reference pictures, which made me realize that Harrison Ford's eyes aren't actually parallel to each other, or at least not in relation to other parts of his face. His right eye (left side as you look at him) is a little lower than his left. I had already realized his nose bends toward his right side, especially when he smiles, but now I see his eyes are also askew, and are in line with his slightly crooked chin.
 
Nobody's face is symmetrical and Fords is particularly lopsided. HIs is an incredibly difficult face to capture and you are storming ahead with this in a very promising way.

M
 
Been a few weeks, not that I haven't worked on this, but my progress is more in the finer detail phase now, though I still have made adjustments to overall face structure, and expression, and I keep adjusting the eyes. But I was waiting to post until I had a little more progress.

I started refining the hair, though I still haven't decided exactly on how it will end up. I may simplify it more, but here's where it stand now:
View attachment 1373664

I also did a couple more subdivisions of just the lips and around the eyes, so that I could add more detail to those areas. It seemed that when I applied another subdivision to the entire head, it caused Blender to slow down due to the extra detail, and I couldn't work very well - the cursor would lag behind so I couldn't draw in any detailed way. I'm not sure if it was only a temporary problem or it's just due to my older laptop not being powerful enough to handle it.

Since the lip area now has more vertices and faces, I was able to refine and add some more lip texture. I looked at tutorials on using alphas to add these details, but I just decided to sculpt them in using the normal Blender brushes instead. I mostly used the Draw Sharp and Draw brushes at low pixel sizes and medium strengths. I also used the Fill brush to flatten out the details, which looked good close up, but further away were a little too deep. It made the texture more subtle. I still may tweak them as I go. Here's two pics from the same angle, first with standard "solid" shading, then with rendered lighting.


View attachment 1373665
View attachment 1373666


I'm not sure how necessary the extra lip detail is, given I my original plan to 3D print this as a mini bust around 6" in height or so. There's no way my printer will be able to show that level of detail at that size. But I plan on subdividing the eyebrows as well, as they look a little too pixelated right now. Plus, the more detailed I make it, the more I learn, and it never hurts to have more detail in case I want to print it larger or use it just as a digital render.
ok I just started learning blender sculpting and i have done pretty well but I am stuck on how to add hair . Do you have tutorials you can refer me to for hair?
 
ok I just started learning blender sculpting and i have done pretty well but I am stuck on how to add hair . Do you have tutorials you can refer me to for hair?
I didn't consult any tutorials for my hair, just sculpted with the various brushes, basically drawing on layers. I had tried out the automatic hair functions of Blender, but I didn't do much with it because I wantd to sculpt everything from "scratch." There's tutorials for the hair function on youtube, but I'm not sure if there's any for just scultping hair. I still haven't decided hoe mine is going to end up. I might try to simplify it, especially since it may lose details when I 3D print it.
 
New update: Just more refinements to the face. Here's the same angle as in my previous posts, and with the photoshopped colors and eyes:

HF 33d 1.png
HF 33d 1x.png


I tried to smooth out some creases and bumps, made the nose a bit slimmer and the tip. I think the previous one had a bit of a Tommy Lee Jones look to it that I've tried to eliminate. And I keep reshaping the head/hair area.
I also separated the head and neck from the shoulders so that I could remesh the clothing. I needed to do that because I had stretched to mesh in such a way that I couldn't get the detail I wanted out of it. So the previous details have been smoothed away so I can start fresh. The biggest thing I have to figure out is how to add the ribbed look to the trench coat collar, so that it's uniform and even. I don't know if a bump map is possible, or if I should just create a new rectangle mesh. I'll have to check some tutorials to figure out the best way.

Here's a couple more angles:

HF 33d 2.png
HF 33d 3.png
 
Update: Every time I post an update, I think it looks great, but after I let some time pass and look at it with fresh eyes, I realize how far off and cartoonish it is. I avoided posting some updates this week, and I'm glad I did, because I had the same issues when looking back at them. Somehow my brain is convincing me that the likeness is spot on, yet it's always way off. I'm not sure I trust my eyes anymore, now I look at my progress pics and they keep shifting back and forth from good to bad. But at the risk of the same thing happening again, here's my latest pics:

HF 34 1.png
HF 34 1x.png


Once again, the second pic is edited in photoshop, adding just the irises & pupils of the eyes and adjusting the colors.
The biggest change I made since my last update is that I changed the size and location of the actual eyeball spheres. They're still separate from the rest of the head, so it's easy enough to do, but it also means adjusting everything around them. In addition to adjustments vertically and horizontally, I also made them smaller and brought them forward so they're not set back as far in his head.
Other than the eyes, I worked on pretty much every other area of the face, head and neck. I also started redoing some of the clothing details, but I haven't done too much with it. You can see I started working on the collar and tie, but they're still pretty flat. But it helps with the Decker look.

Here's a few more shots:

HF 34 3.png
HF 34 4.png
HF 34 2x.png


This last one is similar to the other photoshop, but it's from a slightly different angle because I had been referencing a specific photo (which is where I got the eyes for this one too). I know it's not much different from the other photoshop, but I figured since I already edited it, I might as well include it. Oh, I also added some more light to the right side of the scene for all these pics, so I could see the right side better.

Here's hoping my brain hasn't short circuited again the next time I look at these pics.
 
Last edited:
This is fantastic! Ford is a nightmare to sculpt, as you can see from all of the horrible toys. But this looks great! And blender isn’t as easy as everyone says. Lol!
 

Your message may be considered spam for the following reasons:

If you wish to reply despite these issues, check the box below before replying.
Be aware that malicious compliance may result in more severe penalties.
Back
Top