Toyotomi Hideyoshi - 3D Stylized Character WIP [Feedback welcome!]

TJ_Works

Hello! I've spent the past few weeks on a new real-time character. The character is based on Marco Alveres' awesome concept design; his interpretation of historical figure Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

It's taken me longer than expected and caused quite a bit of frustation from
constant tweaking and adjusting until I was happy. I also took the liberty of adding extra detail not present in Marco's concept, such as straps, the fancy helmet knot and a metal fastener in the back of the helmet ornament.

Below are screenshots of the finished sculpt, and will be retopologised and textured when ready.

Military fan and sword props.

Below is Marco Alveres' original concept.

TJ_Works

Update on the texturing. It's all been applied to a single 4K texture set. Not the final pass but most of the work is done. C&C welcome!

TJ_Works

Since last time, I've textured the sword, created a small stone base and posed the character for his beauty shot.

Originally, I wanted to learn Blender 2.8's Rigify toolset in order to properly rig a 3D character for animation. It became too frustrating however, between the character's overlapping clothing geometry collisions to Blender's cumbersome Vertex Weight method. For some reason, I can't use the X-ray overlap during Vertex Weight mode to properly select hidden faces. I ended up relying on ZBrush's Transpose Master to pose him. Not what I planned, but it got the job done.

I've also set up the lighting rig in Marmoset Toolbag, ready for his beauty shot. After playing around, here's the first pass.

I need to find out how to fix the blocky shadows. If anyone could tip me on how to fix this, it would be a big help.

Below's an I-ray render of the sword and SP.

TJ_Works

Nearly finished this project. Since last time, I've tweaked the materials in SP, making adjustments to the Rough/Metalness on some materials and changing the Hue/Saturation on some of the base colours. Subtle changes really help.

I've also solved the blocky shadow issues and improved the lighting setup. Plus, I forgot to apply sharp and soft edges for the smoothing groups on he model, which I whipped up quickly in Blender. Now the shiny materials should be reflecting properly. The rendering is becoming clear and more readable.

I'm wondering if I should remove the base as it's not significant. The light colour might be distracting from the character model, but it's hard to tell without hearing feedback from anyone.

Below are the latest renders. Can't wait to finish this soon.

JamesBrisnehan

I really like the character, and the lighting is pretty good, but there is too much bloom for my tastes. 
Also the highlights on the gold look little blown-out in the 5th image (The head close-up). Maybe turn down the exposure on that camera a little, or turn down the reflectance of the gold material a bit. Actually the roughness/gloss maps could use more work throughout, such as more contrast between different types of materials and increasing the roughness for the cavities and crevasses (Ex: The spaces between cloth fibers, or the wrinkles in his face. In the 5th image his wrinkles actually look glossier than the rest of his face). 
And one last thing, I wouldn't mind seeing some beveled edges in either the low poly or high poly model. Those edges nearing 90 degrees are just too sharp, and a little bevel can catch some interesting highlights.

TJ_Works

@JamesBrisnehan I understand. I can get a little carried away with bloom, so I've toned it down a bit. I've also went back to SP to edit the roughness and metalness on most of the materials to try to achieve that contrast. As for that glossiness in the wrinkles... it might've been caused by the rim light bleeding through from behind. I did both anyway and it's not visible now.

The bevelled edges would help, but it's a little too late for me go back and add them without having to bake it all. I'm just tired of tweaking this character. I'll remember that tip for future projects though. Thanks for the feedback James!

Here's the updated renders.

TJ_Works

Project finished. Now rest.

Here's a link to the Artstation page. It has a Marmoset Viewer and other information of the character model for anyone interested.