I will be waiting with baited breath 
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The first two images are stunning, (well they all are).
I think that what normally gives away CG has more to do with lighting, backgrounds and perfection. Sometimes images are too perfect, in real life photographs are not, they do have noise, focus point, DOF and normally coulor clipping or abbreviation of some kind.
I am sure that a model this good in the correct scene with lighting and image grunge blended into a filmed background would fool anyone into not even wondering if it was CG. In a film with movement (+ blinking and breathing!) he would be just another actor!
If I scrutinize the skin (really nitpicking, just because [@cekuhnen] mentioned it) maybe there is something about the roughness that is not quite right, It seems too constant, maybe slightly too rough in parts. Some skin creases could be a bit sharper, there could be more of them, smaller pores. there is very little coulor imperfection, freckles, spots reddish or darker patches etc. The neck texture is a bit to generic, (I know you were concentrating on the face).
Anyway do not take this as criticism, I do not do photo-realism myself and am always amazed at images like this.
I am sure that here in this forum we know it is CG because it is a CG forum, with a believable environment in a different forum «normal people» would not know.
This is the sort of model that proves film actors have their days counted!
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wow 
! how?! how do people make such realistic art ?
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I’m trying to remember if I had seen anything better than this, in blender, in terms of realistic portraits.
This is super inspiring!
I enjoyed all of your tutorials, and really looking forward to this one!
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Oh! that’s awesome! I’m really curious about how you got the pores details. Are they sculpted? I tried doing it like in your first realistic male head tutorial and my computer crashed…
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Fantastic work - crrraazzzy attention to detail - from the hair to the beard to the fabric of the hoodie. Really, really nice.
The one thing that I might suggest is to try to add a little bit of expression to him - nothing overt, just subtle. When characters are posed so neutral they can lack life … but that’s just a minor suggestion.
Joe, while usually I would completely agree with you, in this case I’m not (for whatever that’s worth 
). Especially, this one, this one and this one evoke a feeling from me just as they are.
Again, just my less-than humble opinion 
. Cheers!
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damn good work kent!!, you will release this as a free course/tutorial perhaps?..also what specs do you have for sculpting in blender? LOL someone would think this was sculpted n zbrush and rendered in blender …
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Cool! So the porelevel detail is actually sculpted in Blender, and not painted into a displacement map (which would have been my guess). That probably required a high level of detail commonly seen in a lot of Zbrush projects, but technically impressive in itself to do this in Blender. The artistic result is amazing though! Looking forward to the release of the tutorial!
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Thanks for the feedback @DNorman! All very valid points you make that I will keep in mind for the next portrait 
♂
I’m really curious about how you got the pores details. Are they sculpted?
Yes the “macro” pore detail is sculpted with multires at 16 million faces. I used procedural textures to generate stamps (“alphas” in zbrush) for sculpting. I opted for multires sculpting in 2.79 due to the experimental state of 2.9 at the time, which was definitely slow at 16 mil faces but workable. I think it’s even more efficient with 2.9 now but I haven’t tested.
That’s to say one surely can’t sculpt and render a character like this on a 2017 laptop. A higher end PC is needed. I’ve got a system with Ryzen Threadripper 2950X 16-core processor, 32 GB of RAM, and RTX 2080.
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Thanks @MichaelBenDavid! No it won’t be a free course. I’ve got a system with Ryzen Threadripper 2950X 16-core processor, 32 GB of RAM, and RTX 2080.
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So the porelevel detail is actually sculpted in Blender, and not painted into a displacement map (which would have been my guess)
Correct - My highest level of multires for pore detail was 16 million faces. Blender struggled a bit at that level but it was still workable on my system (and with 2.79 at that). Granted it would NOT have been workable on my wife’s 2017 macbook pro.
I think a lot of people would assume it’s sculpted in zbrush and displaced in Blender. Not that Blender is the better sculpting application but it’s more capable than most people think imo. Of course as a Blender instructor I have incentive to try and make Blender do every part of the creation process regardless if it’s the best tool for the job or not. Yet Blender has rarely failed me when I push it beyond expectations. Blender can generate shockingly high-level results if someone is determined.
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Hey! Thank you so much for the link to the procedural textures! they are awesome and will really help me. I only use blender as well for the entire process, but I have to also solve slow computers problems and come up with workarounds. So, I have to solve the displacement by painting the textures. When I get enough work and money, I can start to think about changing my hardware to such a high end like yours. But the procedural approach is great. Thank you so much again. Will be waiting for this tutorial! I’m more than interested.
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hey and can you share your procedural skin blend files perhpas? or make a gumroad link to buy them if you prefer?
So when will the tutorial be live?
Semyon say: good Simon))
great job you mastered.
how much size the map diffus, normal?
congratulation
Excellent work! Do you have website or an email I can reach you on? I’d like to pitch a project to you if possible.