How does it look? Its my first (successful) soft model, and I’m hoping to do more. Its supposed to be part realistic, part scary, and part steampunk. I kept it simple, but if you have any ideas as to what to put on it, please go ahead.
enclose it in a box or environment HDRI texture, so the lighting is more realistic. That band around the middle might look better using a different material too/ different texture. Nice hat though. Is that an elephant skin texture?
Its leather. And its going into a real scene, so lighting right now is just random. As for the band around the middle, any ideas what might look better? I got caught up on this for a while but couldn’t think of anything better.
Maybe just a smooth black band. Something to break it up. Maybe silk like material or something like that. I mentioned the HDRI because it adds a huge amount of realism. I find it hard to judge my own models before I have added one. Its like taking a 3d model and placing it in the real world and seeing what stands out at you so you can fix it. Oh yeah I knew it was leather. I mean elephant skin is technically leather. I just thought it looked like maybe you had used an elephant texture for the bump mapping.
Nah, modified it myself out of cgtextures 
I will try to find a black band that looks nice on the hat. Also, how do you use HDRI? Do you have a tutorial or something I could see?
Oh it’s very easy. Just google hdri images. You’ll know you have one because they look all funny. Then you go into the world settings and click on use nodes, then click on the little circle next to the color and choose environment texture and load the image you downloaded. Done. Now if you don’t want the environment texture to render, just go down (under the world settings) to the tab called ray visibility and uncheck camera. Now the image will light your scene and give some very nice realistic reflective properties to your objects.
If you want a tutorial just google or search in youtube for “hdri environment texture blender” and many will pop up.
Ok thanks! So add a band, any other suggestions? The person who will be wearing this will be a doctor, in a trench, in the first world war.