Figured out what I thought was off, contrast and saturation was too uniform, it didn't feel like it had enough depth and visual interest. Corrected it a bit with adjustment layers and a bit of layer mode color painting, very subtle things but I think it reads a bit better now.
I would simply snap the solid wall to the windowed one, then delete the windowed one. I use Layers to help me organize assets like this. I would put the windowed walls in a different layer from the solid walls. Makes it easier to select/hide/freeze overlapping assets.
For the moment you can't export layers individually automatically. However you can hide the layers you don't need and only export the rest. If you use the default export preset ("Channels + normals") you will be able to get only the part you want with the proper alpha channel for blending it.
Material definition continues. I am using a combination of photo textures and Substance Painter preset materials. I'm using layers and masks to blend between cleaner and more dirty versions of the same idea. After that, I'm adding extra layers of dirt and rust and so forth to increase definition.
Here you guys go <3 And what I meant about using ambient occlusion as a mask, is that in photoshop, you can alt+right-click to open up a mask in a layer to edit it. You can copy and paste the ao into a layer mask and it can be suuuuper useful for certain effects!
Wow these are really amazing I love how you handled the demon's items and added all the tiny imperfections. Guess my only crit would be that you added two layers for his serratus muscles? The concept only has 1 layer Other than that good job man
Not that I know of. As mentioned by Cryrid Zbrush has some very solid reprojection tools, but its layer system is very limited and does not allow for the kind of layer importing operations you are used to coming from Mudbox (this can be quite troublesome when dealing with blendshape authoring within Zbrush).
Rick: Just curious, why would you need the AO layer to punch out highlights? Surely the spec map will cover that? Or have you found it gives better final results if you subtly push the highlights in the diffuse too? I tend to just use a single Multiply layer.
The foliage are just planes mapped with a diffuse and alpha then layered. Some it looks like a solid model with partial foliage mapping and a combination of planes to give a layered look. As for face modeling you just have to practice. Find a high poly face modeling tutorial and then work your way down.
Update #2 3rd and new base done by @sacboi 's suggested tutorial. Better to make it properly from the top, gonna save me from headache later on. Thanks for the tip again! Taking it slow and trying to keep the model clean. I'll adjust it to match my concept in a later phase.