Check the glossy maps. Any of the profiles I've looked at have the shiniest bits (chips along a worn paint surface for example) as white. However, in Octane they should be black.
You can drop the emoticons, you're obviously not friendly. At any rate, I look forward to you participating in a more useful way. Like, posting art, for example.
Great stuff, especially the last one! Only comment is keep the brushwork "clean" and focus on warm/cool to avoid muddiness (esp. in first one for example) Photostudy thingie:
Loft in 3ds Max does this. Plus it will match shapes with uneven # of points. So you can Loft a triangle to a circle to a square for example. Many tools can do this.
Does the indirect diffuse reflection happen automatically or does it need to be setup? Here's a really bad example of a lightmap generated using Flatiron, The lights are primarily whitish blue.
I would do a block-out first to get the proportions before adding any detail, it will help with scale no end. The tyres already look too thick for example.
In the example image provided, the simplest solution would be to just detach the foot and have it rotate by itself instead of with the pants leg, then the geometry wouldn't collapse inward while rotating it.