Overall the retopo looks good. That star pole right under his chin is a bit odd, though. But if you only want to have a less dense mesh for projection painting the new mesh will serve it’s purpose.
You’ve made good progress so far. I would agree with cgstrive. After you’ve reached a certain level of realism with a shader you’ll often only get further if you tune the shader to behave well under the actual lighting of the scene.
i think the easiest way to do the eyebrows is to use a hair particle system.
I found a skin shader you can try downloading and play around with to find out what you are missing.
Download
niice progress 
Hi All
@Piet, thanks for the info on hair, will keep it in mind as i go along.
@cgstrive, thanks so much. i am busy working on a sculpt at the moment, but just wanted to try and get as far as possible on the practice mesh. have learnt a lot on the way, it is encouraging to look back at earlier pics and see the improvement. PS, had a look at your site, some very impressive work there. CONGRATS.
@Lusterflsk, thanks, will add some peach fuzz to the final.
Shaun
Hi All
@minoribus, thanks, topogun is really easy to use, will need to study other peoples retopo pics as i got to a point under the chin where i did not know what else to do. the retopo is only for a less dense mesh in order to get the uv’s in the correct place when projection painting. as i said before, i am busy working on s sculpt at the moment that i want to get a realistic as possible. have a lot to learn about lighting still, but using HDRI seems to really make skin jump out. i have attached a pic from David Moratilla that i look at often for inspiration, can only dream at the moment to be be at his level.
@finalbarrage, thanks for looking and the link to the tutorial.
@sheepHD, thanks very much for looking and you comments. i have had a look at pyroevil’s shader before. thanks for the link.
one more quick (did not bother with removing hair. eyebrows got moved accidentally when i was shifting uv’s around) image using projection paint, scene has two planes and a HDRI. i am going to have to bite the bullet and join 3d.sk or similar and pay for decent images as i have trawled the net for free images, but you cannot find decent high res ones.
Shaun
Keep the hair texture as a guide for when you add partical hairs 
Seeing the normal map of skin that was posted before reminded me of something I just saw earlier today:
http://www.surfacemimic.com/gallery/index.php
I don’t know if it’s of use to you or anybody else, but maybe it would be fun to play around with some of the skin samples. You can even download them for free if you don’t mind watermarks.
Wow! They will be a great help for me! Thanks James Candy!
Ok, not to be a buzz kill here, but I’m gonna offer some advice. Ceasea fire on the skin develeopment. What you;ve learned to this point has been of very good value to you. but as was stated prior, you need to start working on modelling the "proprer anatomy of the head and facend
Im not saying this to be unkind, but you have drive, you have a passion to create a work, And you have a vision of your ideal project. However, you don’t have the modelling skills to get there yet.
My recommendation is get a base mesh head, and also a skull from Blend swap and practice modelling, each section of the face, the eyes, the nose, the earrs, the skull, the jaw and lips. When your practiced a few weeks with that then sart looking at ZBRUSH vidoes on head anatomy, and model some more.
Once you gain a sense of “real anatomy” then return to your pet project. Otherwise, you’ll never get thene at this rate.
hi all
@bonrw1, thanks never thought of that, will do.
@James Candy, thanks man, appreciate it.
@FXR, thanks no buzz kill, you are 100% correct, i would rather have the truth. i have been working hard the last couple of months on sculpting/modelling, hopefully this will improve.
shaun
the bottom line is creating 3d stuff is 10% artistic impulse, 90% grunt work. And maybe even less on the artistic portion. Its putting in the hours to push and pull vertexs around moving them into rough shape. Then stepping back, sizing the work up then going back to the grindstone, repeatedly.
I recommend these things to help.
look up references on the Golden triangle and proportions of the head.
Get abook on sketching faces and or facial anatomy from the library. Sketch out the various pieces of the face, eyes, ears, nose, etc.
watch some of the zbrush videos on modelling heads - theyt got some great stuff
do Doris’. tutorial on the human head in CG cookie. If it costs 18-20 dollars do it anyway. Its worth it.
And last, if you persevere through all this the watch Ken Trammels tutorials on modelling a realistic human head
This will get you rolling from the infatuation phase into more of a journeyman
Cause you already have the most important piece whipped, Desire, Now you only have to add Follow-Through.
@FXR, thanks so much for your input, really appreciate it, will have a look at and have a go at what you have suggested.
in the meantime i have done a bit of practice based on your recommendations.
on the lips i did not get the opening of the mouth correct and the nostrils on the nose could do with some softening as they are too sharp.
cheers shaun
Very very good start. Also for referencing other artists, take a gander at the sketchbooks in the topic below. Particularly Doris, Michaels, and others. Good inspiration.
Id download a good base head mesh to study. An excellent reference mesh is Juan Pablo’s blenrig . Just delete all the rigging and the cage and you have some Great anatomy to mimic.
another good mesh typographically are the make human base meshes that come with the program. Both have good strong fleshy features to tweak and mold for practice
PS. The test mouth turned out quite well
Hi All
@FXR, thanks man. started with a video tutorial by Angela Guenette, attached is progress so far, not sure if i should continue to post here or start another thread :spin:
Shaun
Looking good so far! Just keep this thread, maybe name it something else?
Hi All
Some more work on the head, added eyes and details to sockets. Eyes are really a tough part to get right, still have a lot of tweaking to do!
Shaun
Hi All
@bonrw1, thanks, trying really hard to learn this, lot of new stuff for me. :spin:
Some more work done on the head, going to start the ears next.
Shaun
hi all
ears are very hard to model, spent the whole week doing this over and over and over. i suppose practice is the only solution, and then some more practice. once the ears are made the fun really starts with getting them onto the head. ideas,thoughts always appreciated and welcome.
Shaun
great strides in the anatomy of the head. The face and skull has better proportions underlying bone sturcture is showing now
