Here’s the current status of my entry for the Blending Life contest. I’m pretty much done with the modeling and shaders I think, but the lighting is still quite tricky.
I’d be very thankful for any good hints on how to achieve a nice lighting setup that doesn’t make the subsurface scattering remove details 
Definitely needs better lighting. I don’t really know much about lighting, but I guess that you could turn down the amount of SSS in order to up the lights? I think that the best chouce otherwise would be some form of general ambient light… AO?
The lighting is nearly perfect for the ambience, I suppose it’s a personal preference. What I really have a problem with is the lack of bump mapping, you haven’t got any pores on the guys face! And where’d the wrinkles go? He’s Viking, they’re rugged and blasted, that skin is too smooth and it gives the cg away. The hair needs a bit more work, to make it look more on the matted and thick side, though less with that and much more with the beard.
Also, the eyebrows need a lot more work, make them stand out, thick like. Right now they are flat and look a bit like stubble.
Otherwise I’d say that image is a photo.
Oh yeah, what sort of hair set up do you have? That’s really good!
Thank you for your comments! 
Brookesy: I think I see what you mean here, although I actually tried to keep the picture quite dark to fit with the background…it is supposed to look like evening/night light conditions. I did lighten up the right-hand side of the face a little, though.
Krayon: Thanks! Yeah, I agree. In the new version I changed some settings in the shader, I’m not quite sure about it though…I’ll see if I can work on it some more. The beard I also changed a bit, it is now less specular and a bit more matte and the eyebrows have been changed as well.
Thank you very much!
I’ll post the hair setup as soon as I have decided on a final version, right now it’s very unorganized. I basically used trial-and-error, making heavy use of nodes to get the effect I wanted. That’s the part I’m the most happy with in this picture, and I’ll try to make a more general hair shader to use in other projects. However, the hair also relies on composite nodes, which makes it a bit less general.
Here’s the new version:
Attachments
The new one is good, although it looks a bit noisy. Like the bumpmaps are going wild. It looks better, though. Maybe just turn down the nor value a tad, or make the bumpmap pronounce the wrinkles instead of the pores more. The white bit on the side of his face is obviously the light from the moon. I think you should put the moon in the background there, or like something hinting that the moon is out and big and bright. That way people will subconsciously accept the lighting setup. Because of that tuft of hair catching the light above his eye, it looks like the moon is behind him.
Also, his eyebrows don’t really fade into his head. they look like they have been drawn on with texta. Try mussing with the particle system and have them fade out at the ends and somehow blend them better at the roots so that they don’t look like pubes on cardboard. Also, give them a bit more irregularity. It’s only a small thing I know, but every bit helps. It might just be the lighting, actually, but his left eyebrow is just out of place.
The model itself is good. Can we get a really high res .png image? Small image size and jpg compression are a hassle for figuring out the niggly imperfections (but good for hiding them ;))
All up, looks like a good ad for bloodmoon 
Keep blending!
Alright I’ve done a few annotations on your latest, great work by the way. This is Afaik, so don’t think I’m an expert, however this is to better illustrate what I’m trying to say and to suggest improvements.
- That wrinkle/scar doesn’t look right, it looks like a metal dent. Skin doesn’t dent. I’ve had and have got plenty of scars. They either ridge up, or they just sort of discolour the skin with that sort of size. You could do a faintly flatter bit there but not like that. It should be mainly a discolouration. If you change the height map, make sure it’s like water, the edges slope up but the rest is flat.
- I’ve illustrated how I think the eyebrow should go. Right now it looks like a wide band, I have never, ever seen someone’s eyebrows like that, epecially on a westerner. Look at yourself in the mirror.
- You need more wrinkles, you’ve got one there but it doesn’t show much, add in those lines that define a persons life of emotion. Does he frown a lot? Laugh a lot? Does he do a certain expression a lot? Those lines show that, one is an impossibility. I’ve included frown lines there and a more sceptical/eye brows often raised line setup.
- That line there needs raising, I don’t know what it’s called but it becomes very defined in people like this, expecially if they often grin or have periods of heavy grief.
- What’s that? hair? Or a moustache? Pathetic moustache if it is. It’s a little hard to see, keep it or leave it, it doesn’t matter a whole lot but be mindful it can raise unwanted questions.
finally, I’ve added in several other wrinkles for your information. Wrinkles along the cheeckbones/outer eye sockets, caused by squinting a lot, which is a sign of constant smiling or just squinting, as in into a rain lashed sea etc. Wrinkles in white, not exactly accurate, take a look at some rugged shots of people for accuracy, but basically they are the wrinkles along the edges of our eyes, subtle changes in these can show a lot of personality differences, but they need to be consistent with the rest of the face… oh yeah, they are also caused by squinting…
thickened the eyebrows a bit there, so you can see what I mean by changes. And added extra wrinkles on the lower and upper eyelids that need to be there, everybodies got em, and don’t forget the larger bag wrinkle below them. Take a look at a few photo’s of rugged types to see what I mean.
Thank you very much for your comments, they are very helpful! Unfortunately, I’m not certain that I will have enough time to get all those changes done before the deadline for the contest. I’ll try to get as many changes done as possible, and I’ll keep those details in mind for the next project. I’m not entirely sure that I am yet capable of creating another level of detail (small wrinkles etc.), since this is the first 3d-portrait I have ever completed. The contest has been a great learning experience!
Thank you once again!
Good, good, good, the Phone number Daquan continue to pay attention!http://chbeb.net/files/product/product_29.htm,http://chbeb.net/files/product/product_65.htm,http://chbeb.net/files/product/product_76.htm.