It's a good start. There's some messy geometry, especially around the forearm area. I'd recommend applying a relax/smooth modifier, and then reshaping according to the concept.
that looks like a human head, and Space Marines are not mere humans. As a terminator, a genetically modified space marine, he needs to be much more square.
One thing to consider is the skewing that occurs when baking with a cage based on averaged vertex normals. Looks like here the skewing is more apparent because of the lamella nature of the highpoly pages. Checking the skewing on the original, continuos lowpoly in Toolbag, it looks like the rays will be hitting the highpoly…
Ok makes sense in this case. One thing to note: everything you paint in the 2D view is saved in UV space, so that would stick to UVs even if the mesh was modified.
Some light work tonight, modified the gesture of the body and braids. This will be the final silhouette. Unfortunately my break ended and I won't be able to work and update as much as I want to. :'(
If you want to be properly efficient, you should just make a flat strip and use the bend modifier to get the curve. You could make a unique texture but it will be very wasteful!
Pinterest is awful. It's single-handedly destroyed the usefulness of Google Images in favor of returning endless pages of Pinterest links. Using "-pinterest" as a search modifier doesn't always work, either.
the way I do it is to have my cylinder, delete the top and bottom faces, add a solidify modifier to it, adjust thickness to your liking and then apply. Very weird, but it's Blender :P