I've attempted this in clay first in 1:20.32 scale and then, dissatisfied with the results, in 1/8 scale. Neither were what I would call successful. My eyes are not what they were, and even 1:8 scale I just could not see well enough to get more than a rough likeness. I have my 3rd 1:8 scale attempt sitting in my office unfinished because I was waiting to buy some sort of magnification system to aide me. Sculptris is like working in 1:1 scale and even 20:1 scale. I could if I wanted to model each and every hair folical, I can get that close and the nice thing is, the magnification doesn't distort the piece.
I started her in Sculptress last night using my default femail mesh posed in DAZ3d. When I got an approximate pose for the photo I am working from, I exported her to an obj file and imported her in to sculptris and started on the likenss. It still needs work but compared to my previous attempts it is light years improved.

I'm going to sculpt her hair like the image below for this pass. I'm thinking of cutting her up before I put hair on her that way I can do the hair separate which will look better than undercutting.

The only problem I'm having now is figuring out just how either of her hair doos work. I tried looking it up on the web to see if I could find some online instruction of how women make their hair up like this, but I can find nothing. I have tried just sculpting what I see, but the image is so dark and grainy I don't feel confident about what I have done.

My grandma used to make hair like this, basically he made a "pony tail" at the top of the head, and then rolled the hair around the volume of the root of the tail - do not know if this helps

Yes, it does. I think I can proceed with more confidence now. Thanks. My grandma had hair down to her waist but she braided it and wound it around the top of her head so tight it looked as if she had short hair. The first time I saw her hair undone, I was amazed, I couldn't figure out how she was able to get all that hair from that tight little bun on her head.

I downloaded sculptris but really cant figure out how to use it and I really want to!! Seems that you can really do so much with it

Jason,
If you want to sculpt a figure fast take a tip from me. Go to your programs(x86) folder (win 7) open the Pixologic folder and open that then the sculptris folder, then the models folder. In that folder is a file named figure.sc1. It is a gumby like pied of clay that you can use as a started to make a figure. Open that up in Sculptris using that little icon at the bottom of the tools that looks like a floppy and says open when you put your mouse on it.
Now, mess around with the tools. Or, read the documents that are in the folder above models. It is pretty much like using clay, except that you use a mouse pointer instead of your fingres and you can't see your tools (which is cool because I don't know how many times I could not look past my tool to see what I was working on in clay.

Before starting on the lacework I was at 500,000 polygons. After roughint in the lacework I went all the way up to 1.2 million. Things were starting to slow down on my system,,, not painfully, but moving the object around started when I was up close to it was taking a long time, so I divided it up into 4 easily managed piece in Meshmixer.

The cool thing is that Meshmizer fixes the openings for you, and the other cool thing is that it is much easier to hallow out the piece when it is in pieces. Now I can start on the lace. I wanted this piece to be in pieces anyway, its just easier to cast.

Thanks bro! I will try it. I may PM you with many more questions!

No problem Jaon. If you think it would be helpful I might just put up a small tutorial in this forum. Most of the stuff is in documentation though. I kept a copy of the docs opened while I worked for the first few weeks. Leaning the hotkeys is very important to performance and I found the end of the document more usefull than what was in the begining.

I finished the top and moved on to the head. Because of the lace work, and pleats I had to disconnect the head from the top. With both the head and the top together there are 1.3 million polygons and I'm not even done with the head at this point.
I have reached a slight road block however. When I removed the head, meshmixer closed up the openings left by the dismemberment, but the surface of the patch was convex instead of concaved. I figured it wouldn't matter since I could just load the two pieces and go inside the top and smooth out the protruding material belonging to the head till only the inside surface of the top was left. It sort of works, but I can only get so far before the material from the head starts popping back out in areas I've already gone over. If I get too figurous with the smoothing brush and crank its strength up to 95% then for some reason the smoothing tool goes beyond the confines of the inside of the top.
Ryan, if you are reading this and would like another suggestion for a future release then here is mine.
Provide a joinery tool.
The tool would have the following function work flow which would be a two step process.
1st step describe the joint with the paint brush tool. The sculptor would be required to paint a full ring around the jointed area with the tool, once completed the sculptor would go to the edit menu and select a Joint option. A dialogue box would pop up and provide three types of joints, 1, flat butt joint 2, round pin joint, 3 a square pin joint.
Once a joint type is selected, then an additional option called wall thickness would appear allowing the user to select from the following 1mm, .7mm, .5mm, .3mm.
Once wall thickness is selected the application will take over, calculate the size of the joint over the area of the opening in the segmented part and create a male and female joint. The bottom of the selection will be male and the top of the selection below it will be female. In the case of a flat joint, both pieces will matching flat surfaces.
Upon completion of the function the scene will be left with two distinct parts and another dialogue box will appear requesting user to input a new directory for the parts and/or a new name or to approve the default settings for the parts by clicking okay.
The default settings for the parts are:
Filename = original file name with the a for the top part and b for the bottom appended.
Directory = the current working directory
Format = mixer file
All the default settings can be edited so that another director can be select as well as another root name for the a and b files. The Format should stay as a mixer file, but have a check box that allows the user to pick one other format to write out to.
Just my dream

The hat is tedious and hard. I tried using an older mesh of a hat I made ages ago, but it didn't work out too well, so ended up making a sculpty cylinder in Hexagon and then scaling a couple of rows of polygons to make the brim. Then I took the primitive shape and worked on it in sculptris. It still needs work

are you going to have her printed? she looks most fantastic.

Mike, Thanks. Yes, but the head and the torso have to be put back together so I will cast her instead of offering prints. I should be getting her prints back in 2 or 3 weeks in 1:6 scale. I want to have one on a brass rod with a koa stand and an etched plate with her name and a few vitals.

I'd paint it. I dig it for sure

Thanks Jason.

I got back the 1:6 3d print a few days ago. I was a little disappointed in the quality. Not much detail showed up. I know I am going to have to order her in FUD if I want to make a mold, but I'm going to have to wait on that because of the cost.

So I decided to paint it anyway and see if I can sell her on ebay. If I can get enough to pay for the FUD print then I'll be satisfied. I think I'll mount her on a koa stand with an etched brass plaque with her name and the work 'Imortalite' under it since the photo I am using was taken when she boarded the Imortalite to return home.

You have captured her facial features really well after painting. Well done on a nice creation.

Thanks Jazz, I'm getting closer. Here is another progress shot.

I put a Koa base on her and listed her on ebay.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170835821827
I turned the escheon on my lathe.

Looks very nice with this new concept of sculpting.

marc

I will be offering 1:6 scale castings of Kaiulani for 40 dollars a kit plus shipping. The castings will be from FUD prints of the bust above. There will be two parts to the kit the head and the bust. They will be cast from Smooth On resin,,, not polyester base resin like you get from some of those cheap places on ebay,,, so no harsh smell and the molds will last longer.
If you are interested please pre order at http://scalehumans.com/PREORDER I need to get at least 5 orders to go into production. I will be able to start delivering within a month from reaching the required number of preorders.

Thanks for your orders. This is currently in production.