Animating the Head

I came up with a very simple idea to animate the head. The animation features a polo flying around the the head model, with the eyes of the model watching it before the model then opens his mouth and puts his tongue out, where the polo then lands and ends with the head swallowing the polo.

This was quite a simple animation to produce, with the rotation tool used for the movement of the eyeballs and the morpher modifier used for the opening and closing of the mouth. The polo simply moves by changing the position for certain keyframes.

The morpher modifier allowed me to create realistic mouth movement by cloning the head, moving the vertices of the mouth to an open position on one model and a closed position on the other model and filling the gap for me.

Adding Hair

To create the hair, I simply highlighted the faces on the top of the head that needed hair applying and added the hair and fur modifier. This was the first time I'd ever used the hair and fur modifier in 3D Studio Max.

I chose a pre-set option for the colour of the hair and, although a little light, I think it was the closest option to my actual hair colour.

To achieve the correct style was a matter of cutting the hair, re-combing it into place to follow the faces of the head and then use the brush tool to sweep it aside at the front.

I found that the hair took the longest time to render, and would only render in perspective mode. However, this was not a problem in the end and the addition of hair made the model look far more realistic.