Here's some progress. I tweaked a bit the proportions and did the high poly for everything. I'll tweak the face some more later. I blocked in some hairs as single side geometry that I will extrude later.
you can add the photosourced normal map to the baked normal map. Set the layer mode to overlay and uncheck the blue channel in the layer styles. Its not going to look messy unless you make it look messy.
You will likely not be able to avoid overlapping. You could try laying your leaves using 2 or 3 different layers with less leaves on each layer to avoid overlaps as much as possible, but there is no perfect solution for this yet.
I had a deeper thought about the dirt layer and realised that by multiplying an AO pass with some existing masks & a noise based procedural diffuse I'm able to produce a pretty good 'nook and cranny' dirt layer.
Also if you use layers you can just experiment with highlights and lowlights and light direction as Tobbo suggested, that way if you end up "ruining it" you can always just turn off those layers.
yeah 4k .PSDs with layers probably not going to happen, but it might be good for single layer sketches, maybe sculptris? I think it'd be more of an inspirational tool, but even then the price would have to come down a bit.
Awesome work! Love that sea creature! Might I ask how you add colour to your black & white renders? What layer structure / layer modes do you use? Congrats on the interview also! :)
use mud2011 and export the channel as PSD... or if you on 2010 flatten all your layers in mud and export the layer... Mudbox 2011 Trial http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc/index?siteID=123112&id=13565063
you could just put the layer you want padding on through max's render to texture. You can load individual PSD layers in max and re render them with the padding you need. just a thought:)
My process was a bit different, I did a smart sharpen 100%, then copied the layer of the texture and applied an auto contrast, set the layer style to color dodge and turned down the opacity to 10-15%. Glad to be helping ^^