On my university course we have a facial modeling project this semester and part of the brief requires that we "attempt to contact industry professionals through forums/e-mail and any response [be] evaluated".

Not fantastic at organic modeling so here goes:

Reference:


Low poly clay:


Low poly with edges:


Zbrush sculpted, retopologised, baked, textured.


Thanks for your time.

okay
The hair, the texture for the hair is too... all over the place. the quads aren't running with the flow of the head. The texture for this kind of matting on hair shouldn't be so solid especially around the fringe, not to offend but it looks like the edges of the hair are made from chocolate shreddies.
The face, the nose is too round and missing definition of the nostrils. The bridge of the nose is too brick shapped, above the nostrils and below the eyes the bridge of the nose slopes into the face, where you've made it just sink either side of the bridge. That and the models(the guy int he pictures) nose has a wider bridge in the middle. The Mouth is flat against the face and lines up with the jaw where in reality your jaw pulls back.

There is probably someone able to crit in better words,
But that is what I'm seeing.

I think the problem here is you've modeled from photographs as if there blueprints(front/side/back etc). The result you get from this is a model which feels boxy and flat where the features look kind of ok from one angle but not the other. Instead of worrying too much about copeying from a photo of yourself look at anatomy drawing books about the basic shapes of the head. First look a the shape of the skull and compare it to your model, don't even start to worry about things like hair until you have this shape down. After that look at the smaller shapes that make up features such as the nose/lips/mouth and concentrate on getting those down etc. After you've got all these detail down, you can go about looking at yourself and how you differ from the standard. Remember you're making a 3d shape and not a 2d blue print

Thanks for your comments, should help a lot!

The hair sticks out to much and is just a load of squares.

You should make 3 or 4 different pieces and shapes of hair with opacity and layer them up
also make them smaller longer strips.