Here's an example of Topogun in action I'm debating this myself and Topogun to me, is persuading me very well http://www.cgmeetup.net/home/donald-future-modeling-process/
I'd pull back a bit on whatever setting's giving the yellow (whatever that is) ULTRA BLOOM, and Chrisrad's example of "make it brighter" works well. But overall it looks fantastic!
Pixagogo.com is awesome. Here's an example of what you can find: http://www.pixagogo.com/DeicideNBF A classmate of mine showed me that site. It's a freaking gold mine, baby.
Strange to use Zelda as an example, since you literally play as a reincarnated 'hero' chosen by the gods in every game. Dark Souls might be more your milieu.
Is that cavity map baked you gave as an example done in max? Ot almost looks like filtered from a normalmap, like with xnormal in ps, ndo or crazybump.
So people who freelance, actually do it on a global scale? So there aren't any legal barriers for a freelancer to work from for example Australia for a US client?
You need to move the poles away from sitting on the rim of the hole like such (old quick example of mine): Something like this is the general flow you want.
Jeremy Vickory's approach is a nice example. I really like his simplistic website. You can easily make 1 with the free blogger. http://jermilex.blogspot.com/
I always assumed it was a mixture of alpha cards (for the wispy bits on Azimuth for example), and something done in code (much like this: http://www.xbdev.net/directx3dx/specialX/Fur/)