I've been working on this image today, and I'm having problems deciding if I should leave it as-is or do some post-work on it to try and squeeze as much realism as I can out of it. I was originally aiming for an image as photorealistic as possible using only the poser renderer... As it stands there is no postwork whatsoever except for a touch of gaussian blur on the neck and back edge of the ear to give it some depth-of-field. Any feedback is appreciated, Cheers Blackhearted Ahem...sorry about the (Nudity), but its a sure way to get a lot of people to click the link, isnt it? :)

Just a little postwork is needed on the hair, and, the hotspot on the ear. Please, never ever use nudity just to get folks to look...Okay? 'Cause that is one of my pet peeves. A good render should speak for itself.

The white in the image is a bit harsh. You might want to tweak the lighting or the highlight on the model and see what happens. Also his irises look a little too large to me, but I wouldn't change that unless other people comment on it too. All in all, a great start - better than I'm capable of!

Gorgeous...absolutely beautiful...i'm sure this texture will be 10+ when you are through. Bryan

Thanks Amix, but its not my texture. Its a highly underused texture by Catharina Przezak. I modified the texture quite a bit, added her beard map and my own brow map, eye transparency and a custom bump map. I'm going to start work on my own texture late next week, waiting for my beard to grow out :) Just playing around with lighting and transparencies for now. Poppi -- what exactly do you mean by postwork on the hair? CharlieBrown -- I've been 'tweaking' the lighting for the past 2 hours, I'm satisfied with it the way it is. The highlight on the model is about as subtle you can go in Poser, if I turn it off entirely then the skin looks dull and lifeless. I'd love to be able to have multiple skin layers: a translucent outer layer and a darker inner layer mapped with some blood vessels, but I guess thats something to add to the Poser 5 or Poser 6 wishlist :) Even if I scale the head slightly larger, make it semi-transparent and place it over an opaque inner head the lighting/transparency in Poser 4 just doesnt cut it.

{The highlight on the model is about as subtle you can go in Poser, if I turn it off entirely then the skin looks dull and lifeless. } Have you played with the color of the highlight (both Highlight Color and - if you're brave - Ambient Color) in the Surface Materials editor?

Of course. Right now the highlight color is a dark brown, almost completely black. As for ambient, I only use that for hair on occasion. Ill try messing around with it but I dont think it'll give me the result I'm looking for. I could just render it in Max with Mental Ray, but that would be cheating :)

Looks pretty good but the eye is a little too dark ..it is rather shadowed for the white and makes him look a little odd to me.

Aw man! I was looking forward to some nudity. What a gip! Anyway, nice pic. It looks like me when I'm looking at the nudie posts on Renderosity. Fredoman A.K.A. Your biggest fan

Awesome render! The mouth area looks extravagant.

On the hair...postwork...just to make it a little more natural, at the hairline, in front...Kinda make your brush small, and, blend it a little better. Unless, you want him to look like he is beginning to bald. Just more hair by the roots, in front. Otherwise he is pretty awesome.

Pretty amazing! You and a couple others are really pushing the limits of Poser to get some very realistic looking results! I don't want to re-open the whole "Final Fantasy vs. Poser" arguement, but I have to say that considering the value pricing of Poser and supporting products, it has to be of great credit to the software and the artists to be able to come close to FF realism, in a still anyway. :-)

Awesome... eye-contact with the viewer would be my only suggestion... (he appears to be looking down just a little)

Very nice render. I would be carefull of the eye placement though. When people look down like that, you wouldn't see the top of the iris. You could do some post work on the lips as the beard part of the texture seams to be spilling into the lips. This could be correct on a human, but on a 3d model, the beard hair streatches across the lips and doesn't quite look right. There seems to be dark but faint splothes on the facial skin around the cheek area. This might be due to excessive cloning in the original texture. You may want to try to fix that. Either on your final render, or if you intend to use this texture often, fix the texture itself. Very nice mood and lighting and facial expression. I think it is worth perfecting.

{Looks pretty good but the eye is a little too dark ..} THAT's what was off! I knew something about the eye seemed...wrong, but couldn't put my finger on it!

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=61877&Start=1&Sectionid=1&Form.Search=mirth

Alright, I implemented some of your suggestions and reposted the image in the gallery. Thanks for the feedback guys.