Sorry for the primitive images. If I had more time I would have corrected he contrasted and cropped them better, but they should suffice for this demonstration. The examples below are a caricature of a real face. To achieve a level of realism avoid exaggerating features, which is the reverse of caricaturizing someone. Step one.

If you were working in wood you would start these four cuts on the sharp edge of your square stock. The first 2 cuts form a slightly off centered pyramid whose point ends at just about between your characters nose and chin. (you.ll need to make adjustments here to determine whether your character will have more chin, or more nose and less chin. The position of the point of this pyramid will determine. Closer to the bottom the point gets, the larger the chin and smaller the nose.). This pyramid describes the outer bounds of the face.

The 1st two cuts are with the grain on wood or if you are working in clay think of them at the top of the face for the first and the bottom of the face for the second. The next two cuts are smaller and as you can see on the image the go across the cuts for the top of the face. *Note* if you are trying to achieve realism keep these cuts close together and create a NARRO v channel across the forehead.

Step two.

4 Cuts diagonal across the grain UP and down on the face. Imagine them to be an upside down v that is starting to divide the nose from the cheeks. Notice that inside cuts are deep enough that they describe the bridge of the nose and the outside cuts help describe the flats of the cheeks under the eyes. Sorta like two wide v shaped channels that meet at the bottom of the horizontal v channel to form the upside down v.

Step three.

2 cuts that describe the bottom of the nose. You can see these two cuts better if you look to the right of the image. At that the right is the 4th step and on the totem and you can see the profile of the cuts you should be making in this step. Notice that depending on which direction you are taking your character the angle of both the bottom and the top cut will vary.

Step four.

4 cuts. You are making a small v channel where the mouth will be with two of the cuts below the nose and above the chin. Next 2 cuts are at a slight angle to shape the bottom of the nose. Think of this as either a v or an u shape.

Step five.

The number of cuts in this step really depends on how much detail and where you are taking the character. As you can see from the images below, the upper part of the mouth is being shaped. To accomplish this you need to describe the lower portion of the cheeks where they meet the corners of the mouth and the chin. On men and older people this division is very dramatic, on woman and young people it is softer. It takes four cuts to complete that. Two on one side of the nose, and two on the other. These cuts start and the bottom side of the nose and can end as far down the chin as you like. the more wrinkled angry or old you want the character to be, the further down you make the cuts. They should be a little rounded away from the moth.

Step six.

What this shot is suppose to show and doesn.t do so well is that now you are beginning to hone in certain features. There is 2 cuts in this shot. The first is vertical and is used to describe the chin. You are scribing a section of the bottom lip horizontally and then coming in and removing material to start shaping the bottom chin.

Step seven.

Again, a poor shot, but you are starting to describe the sides of the nose and working out the eyes and shaping the bottom lip more. If this character was going to have an upper lip, I would also start shaping that. At this point, I don.t count cuts. I take very small chips at a time to achieve the results you see in the image below. You can remove clay in the same manor with a very thin wire wrapped in a loop and fastened to the end of a chop stick or an old pen that has run out of ink.

Step eight.

Now you are zeroing in on all the features. Tapering the cheeks back to meet the ears, rounding the forehead, eyes sockets, chin and lips. After this step, you should be finished. Of course, if you are going for a totally real look, you will have to add in the rest of the details. But by this step you have the foundation to start the really detailed stuff like wrinkles, eyebrows, facial hair warts what ever.

I created the face on the figure below using this method to start with

Ok,,, so she is about 3 and 3/4 inches tall too big for 1:20.3. Here's one that is exactly 6' tall in 1:20.3

These are both roughs. I want to cast them in a polyresin and refine the details. Clay just can't hold it well enough.