itsjustme

Keep tweaking it, you'll be surprised what small changes can do. The modeling looks solid...I haven't seen a picture of your subject, but what you have is really good splineage. Not a big deal, but pushing some CP's around on the inside of the ears could be something to look at. Just listen to constructive critiques (and throw away anything you don't agree with), saying something is bad or "gives them the creeps" doesn't mean anything...there are a lot of trolls.

Definitely not a waste of time. I'm not sure how far you want to tweak it, but it has all the makings of something great. Like Robert suggested, a hair shader might help get it farther along. Also, I would suggest a slight change in lighting...if you haven't already, try changing your light to Z-buffered shadows (hair reacts better) with a slightly bumped up Map Resolution of around 2048 and use a Rembrandt lighting setup. Then, you can add a normal map, bump map, displacement map or combinations of the three for the skin texture to add pores, etc. Some specular in the eyes and a slight specular on the skin (I would recommend using maps for that as some parts of the face tend to be more oily than others) and then a slight SSS on the teeth (you'll have to experiment there but a start would be .45, .40, .35), and skin (1.9, 1.2, 1.0 for the skin) . I'll add some MuHair settings to try in the attached image. Hope that helps.

Nice!

Very cool, Charles!

You could start by modifying an existing character...you would be surprised how many different characters you can make out of a single base character.

For character rigs, you could try using a pre-made rig like one of these: 2008 Rig TSM2 (also easy to setup quadrupeds, etc) Squetch Rig (Squetchy Sam)...more links in my signature. There is also the 2001 Rig (you'll have to search for it) and the Saucy Rig (I think the link is currently down). There are a lot of tutorials covering most of what you requested in the forums...if something isn't covered or you can't find the answer, ask a question. I'm looking forward to seeing your project!

If you have any questions, the forum is the place to ask them. Welcome!

Have you tried making a new Chor? I've had a few Chors get corrupted somehow...once I recreated them, things straightened out. Also doing a reset has helped occasionally. Your SSAO settings could also be the culprit. These have been my go-to settings lately. Hope something in there helps.

Can you upload a sample project where this happens, Robert?

I like the style, Steve!

Very cool, Robert!

Merry Christmas!

I'm still working on that myself...modeling and texturing work together with the lighting, so there's a lot that goes into it. Jeremy Birn's book, Digital Lighting and Rendering (on Amazon here) is the best overall lighting resource. Robert did some comparisons with his methods in A:M in the thread located here. Rodger Reynolds (profile here) is someone whose posts on the forum have great information on mechanical modeling and lighting. The Technical Reference has a lot of great information in it....download it here. Yves Poissant has a lot of great lighting information in some of his postings (profile here) Hope some of that helps.

If only I weren't so slow.😁

It looks like you could benefit from the Basic Splinemanship tutorials located here. There are quite a few spline continuity issues.