Nice start, but the black line is not the only problem.
Hope you don't mind some tips.
Please click my render to see it full size and observe the things I'm talking about.
I intentially lit the figure from the side here to make the problems worse.
- Don't draw nostril shadows. First of all, yours don't line up with the nostrils. Second, observe that with proper lighting, they are naturally dark in the right place, despite the fact that your texture is actually normal skin in the nostrils. Nostril shadowing is a lighting phenomenon. It is not a change in the skin color. Your texture should represent the color of the surface assuming everything is evenly lit. Let the renderer supply the lighting and shadowing.
- Your eyelid edges don't line up with the figure. As a result, the texture eyelid edges are showing up on the upper eyelid, and the makeup is out of line. Always test render with the eyes closed.
- Get rid of the highlights from the lips. You've copied the lips in such a way that they exhibit what is called "burned in specular". You've captured the highlights from your photo source as if there are actual white spots on the lips. Paradoxically, this makes the lips look dry and flaky, instead of wet and shiny. Let the renderer/shader produce the specular highlights based on the lighting.
- Make a bump map to go with the color map, but do NOT make it from the color map. If you do that, you're going to create bumps in spots where the skin happened to have color variations or even burned in highlights that won't match when the light is moved to the side. If you can't produce a good bump map, then don't. I used a Turbulence node for bump here. A hand-made bump map is better than a turbulence node. A bump map made from the color map is worse than useless. It will detract from the realism.
Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)
