Figured I'll update this with some other stuff I have been doing. In substance designer, one graph for making like a rough brick normal from height and other one for making a stylized/handpainted looking diffuse texture from a normal. And been messing around with houdini, did this today for making pistons with hanging…
First, can you post some of your reference? You can never have enough! Moving on, no-holds-barred crit time: It has potential, but it's just very boxy and undefined. It's the extruded-box syndrome that we all fall into when we model sub-d. The only part that looks like it is designed to be used by a human is in the back…