After initially deciding to put it off for later, I changed my mind and ran a couple experiments based on changes suggested by  SPYWolf about the nose.

Looking at it in this 9square view, the change is a lot smaller and more conservative than I initially appraised. It will probably need to be revisited again sometime.


I do agree that there is something wrong with the muzzle and I think the description of the nose bridge being sunken is a good one, but what exact change I really want is as illusive as ever. I think there are two reasons I have reservations about many changes I try in this area:

1. I have this deep-seated love of certain shapes, in this case, the slight curve along the forehead, down along the top of the muzzle nose. It reminds me of a beautiful logarithmic curve :3
2. Although I agree the nose bridge needs to less sunken, I don't want to bring the rest of the muzzle up. Even though an L-shape for the forhead-to-muzzle appears to be nearly universal among the furry art I've examined for reference, I much prefer the more fox-like sloping of the muzzle, as seen in this collage of profile view fox reference images (please excuse the extremely rushed and shoddy photoshop work in extracting them.) In order to make the face fit slightly better to human proportions (using a measurement template as seen in this scrap and others) and to preserve my lovely little curve, I made the muzzle less of an angular slope and come down a bit less.


As for this experiment, I didn't see too much in the way of interference with the cheek wire deformers, even without altering them. This change was applied directly to the unsmoothed wireframe, after rigging work was already completed. Since it's just a shape change, with no alterations to the topology, the UV work (and therefore the texture maps) remain intact.