“To see a World in a grain of sand,
And a Heaven in a wild flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour� William Blake

We are surrounded by a spectacular world that we forget to see. As we age our senses diminish in small degrees, but the first sense to go dissolves in an instant...The sense of wonder. Does age bring wisdom or does it bring a cynicism that clouds the world of miracles and amazements that once appeared before us, fragile as the surface of a bubble?

Final face composite. dt3d oren Nayer skin shader. All hand painted textures. No photographs. Paint Effects hair. Single light source with bounce and shadow cards. Mental ray with final gather and hdri.

Here's a side by side showing the rendered frame and the handpainted fuzz frame. Pretty subtle and when you pull back almost subliminal, but it makes me happy to know it's in there.

I tried a bunch of different ways to get a believable sidelit peach fuzz in the renders. I finally started hand painting a layer. What do you think?

One of my considerations when I’m modeling fits in very nicely with the “oneness of scale� thing I’m exploring in this piece. I was once a studio assistant to Chuck Close and he shared a very interesting concept with me on the difference between “symbol� and “situation�. Some people might paint or model a “symbol� of a human mouth say – upper lip, lower lip, red, wavey top and round bottom or they might view the mouth as a “situation� of light and color, peaks and valleys, volume and space. I tend to work in the “situation� school of thought. I treat the human face as a landscape wherein the corner of the mouth is not the end of the mouth and the start of the cheek both an undulating terrain all its own. The closer you look the more you see. The further you step back the more is revealed. The scale changes but the revelation is the same.

Here's the finished bubble, or almost finished. You can see the reflection of the child in both surfaces now.

Thanks to all.

Working on skin shader. Oren Nayer. Have to work on bump. I think I'll add peach fuzz in post.

Modeling pretty much done. Starting to play around with single light and HDRI

I first had this idea when I noticed that the turbulence patterns on Saturn and Jupiter resembled the turbulence bands on a soap bubble.

modeling update