Some people told me in my last post that the chracters I had posted all looked very similar or words to that effect.  Someone said you can spot a CC character from a mile off.
I need to thank all of you for the criticism. At the end of the day, this is how you get better. I ended up posting a whole bunch more characters to show that you really can make unique looks in CC that aren't all more of the same, but my first post showed major characters from my novel.  I need them too look good.

Upon looking at the three main characters I presented in the first post, I realized I had made the mistake of too strongly restricting myself to art-class ratios.  The ratios aren't wrong. They produce a reasonable looking person very quickly in almost any media. However, rather than using them as strong guidelines, I stuck too close to them. They are very good first order approximations, but reality goes out well beyond second and third order if you want to make something that looks unique.

I spent the last couple days thinking very hard about what it is in my mind that makes each of those characters look like those characters.  Was it the way her eyes and nose together looked from a certain angle? Her brow, her lips etc...  Then I went nuts using almost every slider to subtly break out of the ratios I had baked in and saw where it took me.  As a result, I feel each of them are much better and also, they are very different ladies.

75% of original size (was 675x19) - Click to enlarge

75% of original size (was 675x19) - Click to enlarge

75% of original size (was 675x19) - Click to enlarge

75% of original size (was 675x19) - Click to enlarge

75% of original size (was 675x19) - Click to enlarge

75% of original size (was 675x19) - Click to enlarge

Now some notes on how to do unique characters:

1.  You really have no choice but to have ultimate morphs, headshot and skin gen.  Otherwise, for certain, a face that starts out as say Katherine, is going to stay mostly and recognizably, Katherine.

2. The different sliders interact with each other.  Understaning how altering eye-corner hieght inteacts with eye corner angle for example, and how dozens of other connected morphs change each other is essential.  This can only really be learned by experiment.  

3.  I didn't do this for any of the above shots because I thought it would be cheating, but there is nothing stopping you from picking an actor or actress that you like, getting a nice photo of them from the web and making a model using headshot. You then have a head to blend into any other work you do.

4.  There is nothing stopping you from importing an attractive head from DAZ or other places. I also didn't do that for the above re-works.  I saw it as a challenge to do it using just CC sliders.

5. Always accept criticism gracefully.  There are sometimes when you have whatever vision and it really doesn't matter what anyone says.  There are other times - most times - like if a couple people point out that several of your characters look too similar, they probably do, and you aren't seeing the forest for the trees.

So thank you for your critiques!
  

RAG DOLL COLLISION ANIMATIONS FOR ICLONE 8 & 7
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ghost Origins

My latest Feature length film created with Iclone.
75% of original size (was 675x19) - Click to enlarge

My Sci- Fi Graphic Novel on Amazon: https://a.co/d/9k3cwoY

My IMDB listing
Anabran Abdhul Quarnain - IMDb

It is certainly true that I have certain preferred types. Most people do and most people gravitate to them when they want to make someone look pretty. I am not certain how much this is biasing me however.  I am also not certain what you are ultimately trying to get at.  You seem to be cranky at CC. My original intent was to show that you really can make unique faces using CC and to discuss ways to do this.

I think perhaps the models you chose might also show some of your biases.

It's interesting that you chose the three models you did when discussing mouths and noses.  It is certainly easy to make thicker, more downturned noses, like the ones you presented in CC as well as DAZ. It is cretainly easy to make smaller eyes.  Ironically, the ones you present all have essentially the same nose - particularly the first two, going from left to right.  The nose tips of the first and third have the same structures.  The overall shape of the middle nose is a broader version of the first and the third one is really just a thinner version of the first with the nostrils raised. All have almost no variation of the lines of their ridges or thier relationsips to the cheeks.

I am all about eyes in general.  All three of the models you chose have very simple, and small eyes with very little variation from the pinched oval of most DAZ characters.

Another thing that all of the models you presented share is unrealistically wide mouths.  In real life, mouth openings that wide would appear deformed if any of them started to open their mouths or eat, particularly if they have very flat faces like the first two. The anatomy is just off. I mean its wrong unless you are going for making a movie monster.  The middle one is by far the worst in this case. She could fit a grapefruit in there. I can only imagine that her jaw unhinges to accomdate prey.

Now going back to noses, to be fair to me, one nose is a button nose with many curves and a very narrow bridge, one is mostly straight with slight bump in the nose ridge and much wider and wholly different relations to the cheeks and forehead, and the third one is admittedly a little between those two, but has the widest upper bridge and the highest bridge. They also all have different nostrils. What they have in common is that they all turn up. Yes I like that look. 

 All of your noses turn down. There is nothing wrong with liking that look either. But in terms of making characters, all of the DAZ ones you presented are actually much simpler in terms of details and while they look very different, they do so at the expense of realistic human anatomy.

Finally, trying to pimp DAZ's IRAY as better than CC's is not well served by those images.  I'm not sure why you chose to throw that in, but if you are going to do so, pick some images with some more complex lighting and skin maps to show it off.  I think that using DAZ rendering, one could do much better than what you presented, but from those shots, it isn't even close to what can be done with CC or IClone.

There is also no reason why the DAZ look, if that's your thing, couldn't be replicated in CC. To me even that looks too polished, which has been my long-time problem with DAZ.

With Headshot I have been able to create a variety of characters that don't look the same, so it is certainly possible. I showed that in another post.

One thing to try to get past is symmetry. 3D created faces often have too much symmetry and they are too pretty. 

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75% of original size (was 675x19) - Click to enlarge

That's one reason why I put so many little subtle asymmetries in my shots.  Please particularly look at the eyes of the third character.

I never forked over the money for all the DAZ sliders.  I do my avatar modeling almost exclusively in CC - where I ended up spending my money. I am really not certain what the limitations of fully rigged DAZ vs. fully rigged CC are.  I am certain that I have seen nothing in DAZ that I couldn't do in CC. I'm not writing that as a challenge, but I am interested to see something from DAZ that you really couldn't do in CC for people - outside of genitals. 

For that matter, if you really, really want genitals on your characters, there is Hair Tool in Blender. Just make an appropriate patch and mount it as cloth. You can easily import morphs from DAZ for female parts and you can easily sculpt some "add ons" for males in a variety of other programs. Speaking just technically, there aren't enough polys in either CC or DAZ base avatars to accurately morph female physiology close up, but unless you are making a gynocolgical reference or porn, why would you want to?

I only bring this up because having those bits is the one thing DAZ does that CC really doesn't

RAG DOLL COLLISION ANIMATIONS FOR ICLONE 8 & 7
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ghost Origins

My latest Feature length film created with Iclone.
75% of original size (was 675x19) - Click to enlarge

My Sci- Fi Graphic Novel on Amazon: https://a.co/d/9k3cwoY

My IMDB listing
Anabran Abdhul Quarnain - IMDb

RAG DOLL COLLISION ANIMATIONS FOR ICLONE 8 & 7
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ghost Origins

My latest Feature length film created with Iclone.
75% of original size (was 675x19) - Click to enlarge

My Sci- Fi Graphic Novel on Amazon: https://a.co/d/9k3cwoY

My IMDB listing
Anabran Abdhul Quarnain - IMDb

Uhh... I have headshot and mentioned it as essential in the OP.

 Then perhaps try for more variety  in your source photos... just a  suggestion:)

RAG DOLL COLLISION ANIMATIONS FOR ICLONE 8 & 7
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ghost Origins

My latest Feature length film created with Iclone.
75% of original size (was 675x19) - Click to enlarge

My Sci- Fi Graphic Novel on Amazon: https://a.co/d/9k3cwoY

My IMDB listing
Anabran Abdhul Quarnain - IMDb