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In the next few steps we will clean up our mesh by making our edgeloops a little more defined and add detail where we need it.

First off, I'd like to talk about edgeloops and what makes a good clean mesh. Our ultimate goal is to make a single mesh that consists mainly of quads (4 sided polys) that flow with the natural curvature of the face. Ideally, you should be able to pick any face on your mesh and follow it around a path that conforms to the flow of the face. This is called an edge loop. If you follow your path and it suddenly stops due to either a three or five sided poly, you're loop has been broken and you should clean that area up. Here is a picture indicating the loops of the head I'm modeling. The radials are in red and the opposite direction in blue.

If you create your edgeloops correctly, adding detail and deforming your mesh for facial poses will be a breeze. Try and remove any three or five sided polys as you work. It's better to get rid of them at this stage then to wait too long and try and get rid of them when you have a lot of detail.

Next, I'm going to start adding in some more detail and clean up my mesh along the way. I'll add in a ring around the eye to help define the eye socket and cheekbone, then I'll add an edge from the center of the eye to the tip of the nose. This will help define both the tearduct and the roundness of the nose. And finally I add in an edge to break up a five sided poly near the mouth and clean up my mesh a little.

Next, I'll add in another loop to the eye to define the crease where the eye meets the brow. Then I'll throw in a couple loops to help define the roundness of the upperlip and the shape of the chin. As I add these loops, I might need to get rid of existing edges to create a continous loop with no three or five sided polys. Use the delete edge tool ( go to edit polygons>delete edge) to remove unwanted edges, then redraw your edges in the corect manner using the split polygon tool.

Then I'll split up the eye a little to better define the roundness of the lid, plus I can use the rest of the edge to help define the brow and cheekbone.

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