Face development

Now I've explored the shape of the body for a week, I'm focusing on it's face for most of this second week of the project. In the design maquette, the use of the Kijimuna's facial features and expression will be vital in communicating the creatures character and emotions - I want people to feel something for this character, if it's face is too alien, people will not be able to read and relate to it. To give it a more human look (without having to conform to generic face shapes too much) I have decided my version of the Kijimuna will have rounded-pupil eyes and similar teeth to that of a human.

Today I explored different facial features on a half-face mound of WED clay.
 (I use wed quite a lot for things I will be working on all day because of it's high glycerin content allowing it to stay moist for much longer than say, smooth buff. I used it for the project in my last blog: Capramostro and hope to use it for the final sculpt on this one.)
I tried to start off with a human-style face and took a front and 45 degree photo every time I changed the face significantly. Most of the changes were to the nose but the mouth, size and distance between the eyes differs also.

I'm not particularly warming to any of these variations right now but this photo evidence might be useful when I work on the face a bit more. I hope to produce a small bust maquette tomorrow based more on the simple plasteline figure posted earlier on.