The Eleventh Hour! The Eleventh Doctor Matt Smith laser scan clean up!

LASERS! PEW PEW PEW! Nope, not that kinda laser, the non lethal real kind. At Designworks Windsor we have a 3D laser scanner, which allows us to capture a persons' facial contours. I'm sure you're up on the whole scanning thing, it's been happening for a while, now. Still, it's really cool!
So we scan Matt Smith, the data is correlated and refined in a computer, then the product is something like this:

 

Laser scanners can't really deal with fine uneven textures or shiny things, so eyes and hair are lost in the scanning process. The eyes are replaced, and I tend to recreate the back of the skull to help visualise hair:

 I split facial features up in Freeform Modelling Plus to help get sharp, defined lines between the details, like the eyelids, lips and nose.

 Now I start to block in the hair and eyebrows.

 Here is a render of the final head from Freeform Modelling Plus.

 The piece is then scaled, and the neck joint is placed onto it to fit the practically (real world, modelling putty/clay) sculpted body! This is then printed in the highest possible quality by Gary Miller at Industrial Plastics, who do all our Perfactory printing, http://ipfl.co.uk/

 

The head is then cleaned up, sprayed grey and placed on the body! Due to the fact we were working on the action figure months before release, Matts' hair had changed between the reference images we were given and when shooting started, so the hair was amended practically! This figure was then tooled (molded) in silicone, cast in resin, and then these casts were sent out to the Far East to start production of the toys! HUZZAH! Toys for everyone!