How do you create dem polygon humans; a realism developpement thread

Kapoff

Hey polycount!
I just made a dude, trying to get my realism game to the next level. I feel like I'm not quite there yet though.
Any feedback or critique you guys could throw my way  would be welcomed with open arms and internet cupcakes.

dand3d

It is hard to critique work without the reference you pulled from.
But from my initial viewing of your work the wrinkles under the eyes seem to be all the same depth/feel I'd fade out the wrinkle depth as they move away from the eyes.
Likewise your skin looks very smooth. You added pore detail which looks fine, but human skin and faces specifically have imperfections in it. I would turn off your pore layer, and using  the color spray stroke, with an alpha I would add noise to break up the smoothness. Then you can start targeting specific areas that you want to exaggerate the noise.

Amaury

It would help to see the material settings and textures
The black spot of the neck tattoo looks a bit like a baking error.
Also the whole face makes me think of a 25~30 years old man, but the eyes look really old. Maybe make his hair more white/grey ?
If that is a marmoset render, I'd say tone down the SSS and add more normal smoothing
What is your reference ?

Kapoff

Oh god yes! Feedback!
Thank you guys for taking the time, it means a lot.
The base "ref" is Tim here
model
But I wanted to avoid the overly round features and make him a little more slim. So it's more of an inspiration than a 100% ref.
I also got that open on the second screen while working:

For the rendering I tried to get bits and pieces of information from Ekaterina Pushkarova's breakdown, and do everithing in Zbrush.
And the tattoo is just a herp derp moment I had when I saw this so ... yeah. (don't mind the ear in this screenshot, it's been fixed since)
 

kanga

I have absolutely nothing useful to offer except to say well done!

TiO2

I'd say to my eye you have the general head shape and fine details down, but its looking very flat to me, i'm not seeing any indication of musculature or bone structure, for example the cheek bones, chewing muscles or ridges of the skull. the textures are looking awesome though, keep it up.

Shrike

looks nice so far but it has this "too much SSS" look to it, pretty much everyone in games is doing, its  almost like people want to shove in your face that they have this feature. Hes too translucent and too red from what I can see, but im not a big anatomy guy, also he looks ill as a consequence. All the references are a lot more yellow. His neck looks oddly undefined and desaturated and im not convinced by the tatoo, too fine and the color is odd. The eye wrinkles are pretty extreme, and the rest of the face looks rather young, id estimate 30 or so else. Not sure what age he would be, but maybe the beard is hiding it or my bad judgement there. Atm i feel like hes 30 years old with the eyes of a 60 year old

Kapoff

Started fresh with a new face. I realised I never did a breakdown of the facial musculature... so there's that.

Kapoff

Started messing  around with fibermesh after a few tweaks on the face. Nothing major so far.

Also, I was wondering; to proceed on the path towards perfection, should I work my likeness skill at the same time as general realism or should I make it a dedicated thing later on once realism is on point? I'd like some input from you guys on this particular question.

Kapoff

Found the time to derp around with this thing again.  Added some elements around to avoid the "floating head" syndrome.
Don't really know where I'm going with this.


Ref' used