a philosophical observation to share with you -  great art is always about contrast,  the concept of reality vs imagination - so you are mentioning romance - which reminds me of the old french days -  then you tell me about high tech -  which reminds me of cyber punk,  then you mention german fashion -  which reminds me of a world war 2 look -  and so on  -  contrast adds depth to your vision -  it's like a yin / yang -  in music -  it's starting with a bang, emptying things out for the verse,  make a drop for the catch phrase of the song - then bang the lights go bright for the chorus.  and repeat -   you need the contrast of a dark sky and bright fireworks to really enjoy a holiday display -  anyways the point is -   you can think of the future as evolution,  vs the past as culture  -  which you can explain visually without saying a word -  so every little nuance adds story to your image -  this isn't just just a regular armor ...this is a high tech armor -  so that is reflected in shiny - glowy - sharp - futuristic -  but then you mention german influence -  which brings us to a less saturated ...brittle -  cold look which can be applied to colors -   this is where the feelings matter because you don't calculate that....you remember it,  from television,  books and the feelings it gave you for that event and convey that in colors or lack there of ....you convey it as a painting that is peeling from the wall,  or as a hologram looking at someone through a snipers scope.   


For whatever that's worth,  it's a way to organize your ideas -  again into left vs right hemisphere of the brain -  knowing when to go scientist,  and knowing when to go beast and what tools are appropriate for each process.   The lack of clarity of where to go comes to play when you try to create with just 1 hemisphere - because it takes 2 sides of your thoughts to make great art. -  the technical and creative -  which is a natural contrast all it's own.

This is the difference between a great render you can hire anyone on fiver to do for dirt cheap and mass produce for profit,  and a great artist that is able to express his vision in great detail that is unique to them.  Only Da Vinci can create a true Da Vinci.   But you can hire someone on fiver to copy it.

read this - https://archive.org/details/artspiritnotesa00henr/page/6/mode/2up   ( there are various links to the full book in pdf too, but i'm sure you have better sources of access )  - this book explains the creative science behind art.  

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Planet...

I shall respectfully rebut half of what you said with one simple truth.  Form follows function. A second truth is that optimized forms are inherently beautiful. That armor looks as good as it does because I took several types of armor that were at the end of thousands of years of development and the most brutal possible, literal selective processes and then I asked myself where I would fit life support in if he was in a vacuum. It looks believable because it has room for everything he needs, protects what he needs protected and allows him to move. The armor expresses killing because it is evolved to make its wearer more effective at killing.

Compare that to the style of the naval uniform. No need to be killing humans in that, so it can be much more expressive in terms of fasion.

As to art, if you are talking photography or photographic like renders, once you have the emotional content understood, it is a matter of composition and lighting. Don't over think it.  Right now, with this post, I am looking to squeeze more realism out of renders, no more, no less.  I know how to compose a shot.

I'm certain we could wax poetic about different styles and schools of thought, a brutalist woodcut can punch as hard as the best hyper-realist depending on intent and subject.  But, I am not doing woodcuts or oils here.  

I have no idea where you got this right brain left brain fixation from, but one thing for you to consider...  Arithmetic and logic are left brain functions.  Higher math, things that live in more than three dimensions, curved manifolds, fractals etc... pure right brain.

which is something you can hire on fiver.  The other is explaining metaphorically how to organize a workflow and when to use technique to achieve realism in it's various styles -  i'm not exactly sure what you need help with then - good luck :cool:

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And I appriciate all your input mate.  Don't doubt that. What I needed help with was figuring out how to get Mei lit appropriately.  I had boxed myself into a corner. In the end, it came down to more ambient light, less overall direct light even though I had them positioned right, fixing the reflectivity of her hair and adding an additional light and some post processing. I needed eyes other than my own on it and I got very useful feedback which was exactly what I wanted. You helped.

Check out the new post.  

I like your latest update with the lighting and dof adjustments.

For me, there are 2 nitpicks of mine when it comes to photorealistic portraiture.

1) While RE's hair builder product is amazing, there's a perceptible uncanny effect I still see.  The hair just looks a little too fake in some places.  To fix this, I do some post in a graphics editor and draw in a few of my own hair strands.  Using something like a pencil, I use a slightly different shade and draw some stray strands across the grain of various parts of the hair style.  It doesn't take much, but it effectively breaks up the computer modeled uniformity of the layers of hair.  The bundle of hair across the neck of your render is a good area I would fix too.  There's something unnatural with the end of that hair, the way it kinks, suddenly and uniformly, across her collar.  I'd draw some bundles that curve to meet up with the bent ends, and then extend the other curved ones, so everything looks somewhat straight there, because the rest of her hair is straight.

2). I've never been happy with how the neckline of clothing looks so perfect and crisp across their neck.  It's another cgi "tell" of mine.  So, again with a graphics editor, I'll add very subtle fraying or uneveness to the cloth.  Maybe an ever so slight amount of blur to the edge or some shadowing underneath.

These are excellent suggestions.  It wasn't hairbuilder hair though.  Still excellent suggestions.

Hairbuilder or not, IMO it needs post editing.

A fun exercise for me is to take a random photo headshot and seeing how close I can replicate it using headshot, lighting, post, etc
When I look at the comparison between real and modeled, the differences are readily apparent and it is still generally easy for me to point out real vs CGI.
Especially given how ironic CC3 tries to introduce skin imperfections, while fashion photography basically removes imperfections via makeup and photoshop.
So perhaps it just illustrates how certain elements are important for realism.
It was startling how much DOF plays a part.  But I would say hair is the big one.

Right, except that really doesn't help with a sculpted avatar.  I think headshot is a great tool, but I try not to use it when I am creating characters. Please check out the new post to see some improvements in my post processing technique.