Two years ago, I used the facebuilder plugin in Blender to import two or three faces in a project using a single still-image portrait , I assume no AI was involved - and it cost me nothing. Today I have to pay a monthly fee of EUR 20 for the same action - not a bunch of faces, just a few a year - at most, a cost I’m not able, nor willing to pay. So I am looking for a free alternative. If it can be done using Unreal (any 5.x version) that has my preference but if Blender is involved to do some simple adjustments, that is OK too. BTW: Just the face. No animations (for now).
If you only need to create the face and not animation yet, I’d keep the workflow as simple as possible and avoid rebuilding the whole MetaHuman.
A practical approach is to start with a single high-quality, front-facing portrait with even lighting and minimal perspective distortion. The more clearly the eyes, nose, mouth, jawline, and facial proportions are visible, the better the result will usually be.
For a free workflow, Blender can still be useful for the initial face fitting/sculpting, then you can bring the resulting geometry into Unreal for the final setup. The important part is making sure the result is compatible with the MetaHuman pipeline you intend to use, because simply replacing a MetaHuman head mesh isn’t necessarily the same as transferring a likeness onto a MetaHuman.
If your goal is specifically “one portrait → MetaHuman-compatible face”, I’d look for workflows based on Blender’s built-in sculpting/mesh tools or free face-reconstruction tools rather than FaceBuilder. Just check the current licensing and Unreal compatibility of any third-party tool before committing to it.
For only a few faces per year, a slightly more manual Blender workflow may be worth the extra setup time compared with paying a recurring subscription.