Don't use overlays, or AO, or baked maps. Straight hand paint the texture...that's it. I'm sure they use gradients and other photoshop methods to blend colors and what not but the core is just straight hand painting your texture.
Hey guys i didnt know where to post this so here it is. My question is if you know of any tutorials, etc of how people do that Riot style texturing, where you from sculpt go into diffuse, all my tries were as far from Riots results as it gets you can check these Me, i like them, but they are so far from Riot and im unable…
Scooby doofus: not sure if we know the same guys....perhaps we do. I can only go off of what the guys I know tell me. Even when inquiring about their art test, I was told I could sculpt and bake AO but that the final texture should essentially be 100% hand painted. It's very possible various character guys do it…
The Blubber Busters team I believe is at least partially from Riot, and they have a tutorial out there which covers how they approach their stylized art: http://www.polycount.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1953507&postcount=78
Not all of their artists sculpt. Some just straight handpaint. From what I understand, the AO bake serves as a guideline for them to paintover. The final result is 100% hand painted. When I did the Riot Polycount contest and then spoke to a few of the artists I know on the skins team, they pretty much told me the same.
My guess would be try to get less noise and small details and not much photo overlaying at all, keep it painterly and chunky. would the dota2 art guide help? its a similar art style really. http://media.steampowered.com/apps/dota2/workshop/Dota2CharacterArtGuide.pdf