Getting closer.

This isn’t half bad. Pretty soon I’ll have to post it on the social media to gauge the reaction.

*This is an update from today’s post. The skin was too dark, so I had to adjust the tone.

I just scrolled down to a post from July where I thought the likeness was almost where I wanted it to be. In retrospect, it wasn’t even close. So, instead of posting this last render to social media, I am going to sleep on it and come back to see if this is as accurate as I originally thought.

Still getting closer.

The two images above were a struggle with the smile and the eyes; neither matched her actual face. I also suspected there to be a lighting issue, so I tinkered with the background illumination as you can see from the earring reflection. But, the likeness was still missing.

Here, the likeness has grown closer, but I’m still not convinced. I also darkened the back to add some contrast, and lowered the shoulders of the jacket.

This version isn't so bad.

Even with the eyebrows.

Maybe it just needs a set of eyebrows.

I guess I’ll have to work on that next.

Apparently, the likeness isn't quite there, yet.

I’m tinkering with both the model and the lighting. I’m using a few Facebook / Instagram posts as reference. Even if I added eyebrows to the model (which I haven’t), the likeness still appears to be off.

Now, I'm getting somewhere.

The likeness of the bottom picture is very close to the way I want. The issue now is the lack of photorealism. For now, it looks more like an oil painting than a photograph. I guess it’s time for more tinkering.

It's starting to look the way I want.

Since the likeness is almost exactly right, I’m going to focus on the realism. And I don’t know how I’m going to pull this off. Perhaps lighting is the key, but right now I have no idea.

I'm actually getting closer.

I don’t appreciate the way the camera is warping the perspective, but the likeness is improving. I’m not done, but I’m almost there.