Early to bed, early to rise...

This is a Detail-up modeling technique.
Detail-up implies specifically detailing geometry for defined regions, then building them together to form one full mesh.

The term form-down implies beginning with general forms and then working details into this by slicing or extruding extra geometry.
Of course, both techniques work great together, as well as with other techniques such as splines

The Task at Hand...

is a head. And not one of those slick, young catwalk heads with nothing but cheekbone to model. No, we’re diving headfirst in the deep-end. I found this interesting profile in a magazine and painted a gestural of it in Photoshop. As you can see, it offers all of those intimidating organic elements that you might not look forward to if you haven’t modeled them before: flesh, veins and wrinkles. After this tutorial, you’ll be modeling Cindy Crawford with wrinkles. It’s that much fun.