definitely that random "noise" only makes it busy, not detailed. try to play with mass design and with it's pattern(scales should be repititive somewhere, you'd better to reduce ammount of pattern and element types)
Head proportions off. Make it smaller. Take your reference and measure how many head lengths different limbs and elements are. And I really mean this, do this all in Photoshop or something.
Good start capturing the overall forms/proportions of the concept. Do you intend to try and sculpt details such as the "rivets" on the knee or will you be using insert mesh to insert a pre-modelled element ?
I reworked maps elements based on your comments. I've placed the chests in a simple "environment" quickly done. A plane with a fractal, nothing special, just for an effect of depth Viewport screenshot.
Took the base mesh into Zbrush to sculpt out more of a solid concept. I think I will drop the top hat and the collar, and focus on a few more steam punk elements. Paintover:
I think if you want to keep the armor paneiling simple, a lot of the work and effort is going to have to go to the material definition of all the elements. Are you going to continue work on the head?
Thanks vzdragon! Its not much but I almost almost all of the elements through a 1st pass. Still wondering about the final design for the door. And the back side of the building haha. Cheers!
Is your highpoly subtool made out of individual cubes polygon islands? If so, perhaps try dynameshing it first so that it becomes one single merged element before trying to project.
These are the assets in UE4 from the Elemental demo. I havent made anything yet, trying to figure out how to lay out the UV's like the above image for custom flow geo.
With something like what your making, i manually model a few elements and assemble them in Maya. Then i take them into zbrush, sculpt, poly decimate, then back into maya for baking.