Question on Patch Modeling Heads.
 

Hi, I am trying to patch model Avril Lavign (i'm not her fan, but i just looked for photos of complete profile/front view and she had them), So far, I'm still working with Nurbs.

I am trying to make a realistic, but low poly head.

Questions:

1) I wish to have the shortcut button on Shelf, the "X-Ray thingie". But I can not seem to Cntrl + Shift + ALT it on to it. How would i make one?

2) Seen in the second picture. I lofted from "bottom of lower lip" to "chin line" with two section spans. But is getting 4 CV's in vertical direction normal? I thought CV's get created on only cross sections of Isoparms.

3) Seen in the third picture. I am continuing with just lofting the duplicated curves. But I do not know where to go after this.. Any suggestions on what to do after? I plan on making the ears purely in Polys after i convert the NURBS to Poly.

Could anyone give me an idea where to go from now on? (ex. loft top of nose to brow ridge... or loft bottom of eye socket to bottom of lower eyelid)

4) I've only been working with Maya for 2 weeks now, but I have had traditional training on portraiture and figure painting.

Could I get a job, as purely modeling faces/body w/o coming up with concept? I think if I learn how to model a head, I could learn how to make cartoon/game charactors that already have been designed.

If so, the... companies(?!) would want to see a portfolio, aye? What kind of portfolios or how many pieces of work would they want to see? I am planning to learn from and to "modeling, texturing, rendering, animating"

http://img16.exs.cx/img16/7051/19cl.jpg

http://img16.exs.cx/img16/9107/20id.jpg

http://img16.exs.cx/img16/9964/39jo.jpg
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Thank you guys, this website has been the most helpful website I have ever found. I especially found the "Cartoon Dog" tutorial to be the most through and detailed tutorial on what i wish to achieve.

Once again, I thank you all for such a wonderful community.
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1) A way to find out anything like this is to turn on echo all commands in the script editor and then turn it on and off and see what comes up.

2)This is normal, check your tool options under section spans.

3) Personally I get a NURBS cylinder and snap togeather the top and then start to sculpt my head straight off that. The advantage of this is that you can see the whole head form straight away though the anatomy of this is compleatly void, because it is NURBS you can draw curves straight onto it. Ears can be done in NURBS but not as easily as with
polys, again just experiment and choose a way that suits you.

Oh thank you so much for answering the questions. I very much appreciate you taking time to answer me.

I've got one more thing, i'll put up on the forum again. Thank!