Hey Polycount,
Attatched is my progress on a Space Marine chainsword as seen in the Space Marine game that came out about a year ago. This is for a class, so constructive crits and comments are, of course, encouraged.
Will be baking normals from this as well as making a low poly in the coming week(s).
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Your modelling is decent. Your bake looks like it came out ok (although it's hard to tell in the image you provided) Don't let all that go to waste by finishing it off with a bad texture.
Have a look at the first reference image you posted. Look at how clean it is, look at the contrast between the materials, look at how the specular is making it pop. Make observations in that image and apply them to your texture. Don't just slap a bunch of photos onto your texture sheet.
Also, I recommend you post your texture sheets for us to have a look at. It should give us a better idea of what you're doing right/wrong.