It's time to make the head next, so I open up the graphics program and start lining up my referrence photos, to plan my attack.

Previously, I had just thought she had some nice red ribbons in a bun-type thing on her head, but on closer inspection in another photo, the ribbons are gone, and she has a stick in her bun. I went to the web and researched more photos, but all I found were more of the same conflict. Now is when the judgement call has to be made. If you are skinning a person, especially a comic book character, they change their looks and outfits more often than a boyband at a concert, so you will probably have to make a judgement call too, trying to keep true to the design, yet make it how you like it. So I decide I'm going to go with both the ribbons and the stick, and that is that.

Now I have to decide which head to modify. Her hair seems fairly straight, for the most part, just long wisps around her face, and the upsweep into the bun. So so you have an idea, I made a sketch with my program to show you one aspect of my plan, drawing the major lines and wispys I want to create. There is is to the left.(no it's not pencil, I actually free-handed that with the paintbrush option, so don't make fun of it!)

I will keep the graphics program on during my meshing (mostly to transfer all my screenshots for you wondeful people to see) so that I have a constant referrence availible.

Looking at this mesh, I'm going to have a combination of 2 meshes that I will need. I'm going to need one for the upsweep and one for the long hair. 2 meshes into one? That can't be!

Oh but I can. I learned how from Jennova's tutorial, not too long ago. I'm still learning, too, just like you.

I already have those pre-broken down in a file of mass-heads, so I will just pull those out. for those of you who don't, here's a quick break-down of how to get a mesh to editable .obj form with SKN2OBJ :

First, you locate your meshes you want to convert. Second, you make a temp folder for those meshes to go into. It could be a library system like mine, or a project folder of whatever you are skinning. Just a nice place to keep everything while you are working with them.

Open up SKN2OBJ. In the menu, select "open" and then use the explorer box to find the mesh you want to convert. Once you have it selected, open it. Then select the "save as" option. This is where you save the loaded mesh into your project folder or your library of parts. You can just save it as "head1" and "head2" (I'm using 2 head meshes, remember?) or be a bit more descriptive, and save them as "hi-bun" and "FAbwar". Whichever is easiest for you.

Once those are converted, you're ready to open up your 3D program. I use Milkshape 3D, which I will refer to as MS3D in this tutorial. You can use whichever you like, the principals are the same.