Marking the Seams
The first step to unwrap will be to mark the seams to tell Blender from where you want your UVs to be unfolded. In Edit Mode (Tab), select the edges shown in Figure 8.5. You don’t need to mark them all at once; you can mark some of them now and then mark seams in other areas as you proceed. To mark edges as seams, press Ctrl + E to access the Edge menu and click Mark Seam.
Pay attention to how the edges selected to be the seams of the UVs are placed in areas that won’t be very visible; they appear on the back and sides of the head, and over the forehead, where they’ll be almost completely hidden by the hair. The closed seam that has been selected at the top of the head is there so that part becomes an isolated UV island; after all, that part will always be hidden under Jim’s cap, so you don’t need a lot of definition there. This way, more space in the UVs can be used for the areas that matter and need more resolution in the texture.
Also, while you can’t see it in this image, there is a loop marked as a seam in the inner part of the lips, so that on the UVs, the geometry of the face’s interior is separated from the face’s exterior. Remember, you can use Alt + RMB to select edge loops.
Tip
For marking seams, a very useful selection method is the Shortest Path option. When you need to select edges in line, select one and press Ctrl + RMB in another edge, and the edges between the two you’ve selected will also be selected, allowing you to select long lines of edges very quickly. You can press Ctrl + RMB again and again until you have the entire desired edge loop selected.