What software are you using? This looks like a mental ray render, and it seems to me like you need more final gather rays. It also looks like you need a rim light and some bounce cards opposite your lights to get better shading in the tiny cracks. Then your displacement should look much more like your Ztool. These are just render issues, though. The model looks good and the displacement looks great as well. I think you just need the right tools make it all POP.
-Rage
Hey guys, cheers for the responses
Regarding the darkness thing, that’s kind of the point - it’s this chiaroscuro look I’m going for:
http://stephenbauman.com/images/cast_drawing1.jpg
http://www.rickardljungkvist.se/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/castdrawing3.jpg
There’s a rim light in there at the moment, but it’s subtle because in reality you’d never really put a rim light in there, as you’d want to lose those edges in the dark. Losing detail isn’t a big concern, as these sculpts haven’t really been about the detail, but of course with the combination of the high key lighting and the lack of specular there’s quite a bit of stuff that you lose in the render.
Anyhow, I’ll go over the renders (@rage - yea they’re in MR) and post up some models this evening after work.
This is just a suggestion for your renders Chris. You could set up a light, in the area of your rim light, and link it to a bounce card only in front of your model with a high ambient value. It might help you get a darker background and highly exposed foreground like in those images you posted, which were very cool, btw.
Cheers
-Rage
Man I love all the details you add to every expression. Especially “Fear”, is freaking amazing! Masterful work. 
Ok bit of an image dump this, but here we go. Final expressions. I never thought I’d say those 2 words together 
Pride
Anger
This was initially going to be “annoyed”, since I already have anger. But the more I sculpted, the angrier he got, so I suppose it makes sense to have this as “angry” and the “anger” I’ve already done as “rage”.
Attentive (Concentration)
Not a new one, but I reworked the mouth area after the feedback here.
The final two I’ve done renders for, to experiment with the setup more -
Love
Despair
Bale cries very convincingly in that film, which was great. Really good little actor. He just wasn’t quite sad enough for my liking.
@Joel - I think what you’re describing is fairly similiar to what I’ve got. As it stands there’s an area light as the key light, to get soft shadows like the reflector you suggested would, a spot light behind as rim, and IBL as fill.
Man, you really nailed despair! I’ve never felt so bad for a bust, digital or marble! Great work, this thread has been a delight to follow.
Bosh, I’m done. Now time for sleep (it’s 5 am, since I decided I didn’t want to spend another weekend doing it, I thought I’d stay up to get the renders done. Have since learnt lesson.)
For the sake of completeness, I’m posting the final image with all the expressions on here:
There are larger renders of each, the links are in the submissions thread.
Anyway, I’d like to say how much I’ve appreciated the kind words and useful crits from all of you guys throughout this challenge. It really made such a difference, and made the whole thing a lot more enjoyable. I’d have appreciated it more if one of you bastards had spotted the fact that I’d sculpted 16 instead of 15 expressions, as I realised just as I was getting the images together to submit. But I suppose nobodys perfect
Cheers,
Chris
You really captured his likeness. Very nice work. Glad to have competed with work of this caliber.
Congratulations on the on-time completion. This was quite a project. You’ve done some seriously great work here.
Chris congratulations on completing and your beautiful work!!
He looks so adorable :love::love:
Glad you got it done, Chris. Your renders are looking good, too. I’m glad you were able to achieve the look you were going for. Hope to see you around in future challenges.
-Rage
Chris. Awesome finish my friend. Your thread has had me stressing big time! Your work pushed me to try better mine. So I thank you for that. It was an absolut pleasure competing with you.
Cheers,
Brett
my goodness :buttrock: . you are LOTC
i know nothing is perfect but i can call it perfect!
beautiful work chris. SAD is my favorite. the sculpt and emotions really shine through
in that one for me. you’ve definitely captured bale in the majority of these…that awkward smile he has is definitely present in PLEASURE and PROUD…that kind of stuff is always
the hardest to pull off. again, some of the best 3d modelling i’ve seen in a loooooong time.
cheers,
g
Thanks a lot for the feedback everyone.
@Tyrone - Special thanks to you for taking the time to give everyone crits and encouragement all the way through even though you didn’t enter the challenge.
@Brett - Haha sorry for stressing you out! But if it pushed you on yours, I suppose that’s the biggest compliment of all.
@Polymaster - Yea you can call it perfect. You’d be horribly wrong, but that’s ok
@Gio - Your work is inspirational, so it really means a lot for you to stop by here with positive feedback. Thanks.
Cheers,
Chris
