EDIT: I took another pass and really made an effort to optimize the mesh better and add some more depth into the texture...I'm not dont yet, hope to take another crack at it this weekend if time permits.
If you're moving into characters, it would benefit you (or anyone doing so) to study anatomy. It's a big part of character modeling and an important one. If you can't make believable anatomy or proportions the rest of the character gets skipped over and people focus on the obvious issues.
In the interest of learning it more easily, I would suggest trying to not stylize your characters right away and instead do ones where you can practice and study anatomy at the same time.
For this particular character, the polygon density is out of wack, there are areas which are dense next to areas with few loops. You say you are going to optimize it so I guess that is one of the things you will address. You say it's ready to texture, but I am also not getting a sense of what this character is yet. The model, and even the silhouette should help to indicate the character's purpose or what they do. At the moment they could be a naked guy presenting himself or a super hero wearing a skin tight suit, I dunno.
You make some good points and I think i'll try to go for a realistic proportion for this dude. I am going to keep it as bare bones as possible (semi nude) this time around and try to get that looking good, and if it turns out well I will use it as a base mesh for something more involved and having more character. Ya the density is still outta whack and that's something I am going to address along doing some more modelling and trying to get the overall anatomy looking better...cheers!
The problem with this character is that alot of the body is being lost in the armor. You have a head, but his helmet doesn't seem like it's sitting on a skull. And the same thing goes for the shoulderpads.
I guess what I'm saying is, you have armor, and form, but no anatomy upon which they're based; try starting with a just a body, and then modeling the armor around and atop that body. I think that'll help you get a much better result
This is a really good first Character. Much better than my first.
I wouldn't worry about doing any optimizations for now. The mesh is so low poly, that it's losing so much of it's silhouette. Your edge distribution looks a little off, and you seem to be sacrificing so much of the silhouette to get it lower poly looking. Keep the polygons intact, and don't let your optimizations sacrifice your silhouette.
Unless this is for a specific game, then I'd suggest keeping it around 2000 triangles.
Like others have stated, there's a few fundamental things you're missing, but are trying to hide with skill (you seem to have a decent understanding of light and shade).
I think the biggest issue you have is a lack of reference. You're not using reference for your anatomy, you're not really using any reference for your face, or your proportions. If you DID grab references, it doesn't seem like you're using it. ALWAYS have your reference up! ALWAYS!
For instance, the FACE you made doesn't look like a normal face. You have an understanding that a face has eyes, noes, and a mouth, but you don't really understand the shape or mechanical functions of those things. An eye shouldn't be so oval shaped like that. they're supposed to be more almond shaped, and have a fold above the eye, along with eyelashes, and creases, and dents that really make it look believable. Eyes are also not supposed to be THAT white, and they're not supposed to be positioned so close together.
(same kinds of detailed crits for your mouth nose and ear, chin, cheeks, hands etc).
You should really try making this character LOOK like someone.
Try making an orthographic FRONT screengrab, take it into photoshop, and draw what you want the anatomy to be like ON TOP of your work.
Keep in mind all the muscle forms, how many heads high, and what you want the face to look like. I imagine this looks to be some-what WoW inspired, so I would just go ahead and overlay a level 1 WoW character to see where you need to make your necessary changes.
Here's a few tutotials that taught me a lot. They might be of help you (or at least get you inside of the heads of other artists).
Replies
In the interest of learning it more easily, I would suggest trying to not stylize your characters right away and instead do ones where you can practice and study anatomy at the same time.
For this particular character, the polygon density is out of wack, there are areas which are dense next to areas with few loops. You say you are going to optimize it so I guess that is one of the things you will address. You say it's ready to texture, but I am also not getting a sense of what this character is yet. The model, and even the silhouette should help to indicate the character's purpose or what they do. At the moment they could be a naked guy presenting himself or a super hero wearing a skin tight suit, I dunno.
I sure am going to keep plugging away and strive to make the next one exponentially better....Thanks for the words of encouragement mate!
I guess what I'm saying is, you have armor, and form, but no anatomy upon which they're based; try starting with a just a body, and then modeling the armor around and atop that body. I think that'll help you get a much better result
I wouldn't worry about doing any optimizations for now. The mesh is so low poly, that it's losing so much of it's silhouette. Your edge distribution looks a little off, and you seem to be sacrificing so much of the silhouette to get it lower poly looking. Keep the polygons intact, and don't let your optimizations sacrifice your silhouette.
Unless this is for a specific game, then I'd suggest keeping it around 2000 triangles.
Like others have stated, there's a few fundamental things you're missing, but are trying to hide with skill (you seem to have a decent understanding of light and shade).
I think the biggest issue you have is a lack of reference. You're not using reference for your anatomy, you're not really using any reference for your face, or your proportions. If you DID grab references, it doesn't seem like you're using it. ALWAYS have your reference up! ALWAYS!
For instance, the FACE you made doesn't look like a normal face. You have an understanding that a face has eyes, noes, and a mouth, but you don't really understand the shape or mechanical functions of those things. An eye shouldn't be so oval shaped like that. they're supposed to be more almond shaped, and have a fold above the eye, along with eyelashes, and creases, and dents that really make it look believable. Eyes are also not supposed to be THAT white, and they're not supposed to be positioned so close together.
(same kinds of detailed crits for your mouth nose and ear, chin, cheeks, hands etc).
You should really try making this character LOOK like someone.
Try making an orthographic FRONT screengrab, take it into photoshop, and draw what you want the anatomy to be like ON TOP of your work.
Keep in mind all the muscle forms, how many heads high, and what you want the face to look like. I imagine this looks to be some-what WoW inspired, so I would just go ahead and overlay a level 1 WoW character to see where you need to make your necessary changes.
Here's a few tutotials that taught me a lot. They might be of help you (or at least get you inside of the heads of other artists).
http://www.michaeldashow.com/tips_texturepainting.html
http://www.pig-brain.com/tutorials.htm
http://www.poopinmymouth.com/tutorial/tutorial.htm
A lot of focus on "little" things that really help you to understand the bigger picture.