Nothing wrong with a realistic 2 walls and a floor for a first envio. It will really show you how complex and time consuming it can be. For a first time envio you will hit a lot of speed bumps that you want to hit and learn from.
_gir is correct, get the anatomy and proportions correct before bothering with the details, even the mid-level details. There's a lot to correct in what you have right now, take a look at some realistic references, even if her figure will be stylized.
Yeah, anatomy is a bit off, if you are aiming realistic style. Are you using ref? To correct is not difficult, make a paintover and fix proportions. About Z tutorials, internet is full of them, specially in Youtube. Are you looking for something specific?
I get that. A lot of artists have told me; they felt she lost a lot of 'soul' when she transitioned to a more 'realistic' setting. But the newer incarnation of Tomb Raider sells like 20x more than the old ones.
Either Atlas setup with masks, or as Vailias said, go with 2 materials. I recommend two materials personally. Trying to work with masks (especially if your materials are complex for that 'realistic' look) isn't the best of ideas and will add headache only.
i have had the same problem, but changing the view to realistic fixed it for me, also have you changed your mono channel output to alpha and your rgb channel output to alpha as grey? (both are in your bitmap options)
This done quickly and without reference just to get an idea down quickly. This done from reference of a painting done for a book called "Dinotopia" in 1998. Found the image in the book called "Color and Light, A Guide for the Realist Painter" by James Gurney.
Budgeting time is probably the toughest thing to learn - whether making a film or working on a game. Learning to set realistic goals, and being willing to cut early to produce a smaller but superior product is, unfortunately, something even professionals seldom learn.
@ultim8alex 4096 seems quite giant. I'm mainly referring to in game art ready assets that will be used in the engine. Correct me if I'm wrong, but realistically most textures are no larger than 1024 when it comes to that situation if I'm not mistaken.
Latest WIP's I moved to Unreal 4 and the renders I got were a bit punchier and more realistic. @Tamarin: I adjusted the Rust to be less purple but let me know what you think! The critique was super helpful :)