Currently working on feathering my model of deinonychus, and for the longest time, especially now with the feathers coming in, that the face looks “plasticly?” The material is meant to mimic bird skin.
I textured the guy in substance and he has SSS, as well as a displacement map that affects real geometry yet still, something to me just sticks out as “that’s CGI” and I’m not exactly sure what.
But to me it looks dead – taxidermied, well preserved for a museum exhibit. If that’s not your purpose, then I think @Modron is right, a little wetness around the eyes, nostrils, and mouth would fix that (I’d personally do without the actual drool string). Also, the teeth seem immaculately white, like this dino visited a California dentist; I’d age them a little – you could look at close-up images of wild lions, tigers, crocodiles for a reference, there are lots of those.
You could maybe try different things with the roughness and sss, see how it looks if you add more. Like more lizard skin and less alligator, see if it works or just ruins it. The color map is good, don’t think anything else with that.
Hair/feather strands are too uniform. Looks like the children particles need just a bit more randomness.
