Welcome to this tutorial about the workflow I used to create the character Captain Lysander from the Warhammer 40k universe. He took a great amount of work and I was lucky to create a way that did not take hours to unwrap the UVs—the most boring task in creating a very highly detailed model. I see this tutorial as a kind of advanced one, so I won't explain anything about modelling or creating normal maps and so on, there are dozens of other tutorials out there showing those techniques. For this character I used 3Ds Max 2009 and Mudbox 2010. It is rendered in Mental Ray.

Theory

When it comes to the point to create a highly detailed character with lots of armour parts having a used look, you first should think of how you are going to create the parts and what will be difficult and what won’t. As I wanted him pretty realistic, I gathered some references on the web resulting only in a few drawings that showed him in a realistic way. The main reference I got was the toy miniature; there are dozens of images on Google. I then decided to concentrate first on the head because if that won’t become cool, the rest wouldn't be interesting either. A stupid head would ruin the whole image. As I created the base mesh, I unwrapped the model the usual way using the Unwrap UVW modifier. I typically export as .obj, open in Mudbox/Zbrush, sculpt and export a new base mesh using a low level but not the lowest to maintain the outer shape as closely as possible without spending millions of polys already.

 

Next step is to texture the head using photo references, or draw the map completely yourself. I used various images from 3D.sk and painted it onto the model in Mudbox using the projection tool. After, I exported the diffuse map and created a displacement map for the rest of the details.

Back in Max, I created a SSS with displacement shader, all the necessary maps like specular, bump and so on, tweaked all the settings and that’s it. Creating a realistic face is in fact a hard task and it takes many steps to get good results. You can only get better by practicing to gain all the necessary experience. I really don't want to write how to set up your shader, eyes and so on because I want to concentrate on my workflow. So for more info on faces, check out the many tutorials already online.