I'm kind of a shy person so I haven't shared any of my work online yet (except for cgc exercises and an unrelated model) but I've started to think it might be productive to share my humble models, textures and some 2d art.
@theluthier My idea is matching the helmet with the brass buckles and metalwork of the belt, the sword and its scabbard (Which I haven't textured yet. They will be brass too) So I'm hoping things will make more sense when the sword is in its place.
Though there aren't many surviving examples, from what I've gathered, some soldiers had their helmets painted to make them more aesthetically appealing and because it was cheaper than a shiny polish. I've seen some considerable variety ranging from simple checker patterns to a monster face.
https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/lowres-picturecabinet.com/101/main/2/429356.jpg
The artwork in the example is really cool but the shape of the helmet is rather crude and more on the cheap side compared to some other knightly helmets.
Once all the branches and the leaves are there, I will add the shadow details on the intersections then some grunge, wear and scratches. I'm aware the details are critical.
As for the HDRI, This is the one I used. I wasn't aware of it at the time as I though I was just using one of the studio HDRIs. This isn't a particularly good one but it's useful to see places like underside of the helmet or the boots. SP is a bit lacking in that regard.
@drgnclw I starting to come together real nice. This is some wicked awesome character for your first try!! I like the darker pants better :) keep it up!
ssmurfmier1985 Thank you. I like the darker pants a bit better too but I'll probably export two textures with both colors to see how much lighting will have an effect.
Update time! I slacked off a bit but only the eyes are left to texture. I made a very simple looking wood material for the shaft of the poleaxe, textured both weapons (I decided to leave the dagger out because... well, reasons :P ) textured the face (Eyelashes are textured but the opacity doesn't look good in viewport render for some reason and since I can't set up proper lighting in SP's Iray, so they're not in the screenshots) and also pretty much finished the the helmet. I'll take a day off tomorrow and look into texturing the eyes next day and after that, I'll rest my eyes for a day and then fix a couple minor issues, add some more small details and maybe play around with some texture values. Of course, I'll take your criticisms into consideration too.
After some rigging issues and more slacking, I'm almost finished with this project. I'll look at this with fresh eyes tomorrow and maybe change some stuff around with the lighting and also set up for a close up render of the helmet.
https://cgcookie.com/u/drgnclw/projects/man-at-arms Yay, I'm done! It was a long process, it was tiring etc. I mentioned these before :D
I'd like thank @theluthier @jlampel you guys (and every other instructor too) for everything I learned from you.
Now it's time to rest a bit.
I watched some ZBrush tutorials (sorry :( ) yesterday and doodled around with a couple of things. Today, I collected some troll references and sculpted a troll-like creature. Also polypainted it :D 
Skull study. Gonna make more adjustments tomorrow. I might turn this into a little project before starting my next character.
@drgnclw I think this is confirmation of idea, that we're doing almost the same stuff in synch xD
@drgnclw It would be funnier if I said that I really am, but nah, have no character projects for now. Just pumping up overall basic shapes and anatomy :)
Finished the skull. I outlined the different bones without the fancy wobbly lines :) There are still some issues but lessons learned.
More individual studies. I also sculpted an eye but it really isn't worth showing. It took me some time and it isn't polished at all.
And today, I sculpted a female face. I wanted to finish this in about two hours but the eyes gave me some trouble so it took an hour or two more than that (didn't count the hours after the second hour :D)
I'm gonna do a couple more busts then start working on another character.
I tried out sculpting a likeness but it seemed very difficult so here's another generic female face that's probably going to be the face of my second character :) I tried out a couple of different eyebrow styles and I promise you, she look much less weird with them :D I'll play around with the model some more tomorrow, look into zremeshing and then I'll start learning about grooming and hair cards.
I'm also thinking about spending an hour a day on learning more about sculpting (basically, watching the art of sculpting course and doing some daily exercises)
Let me know if you have any ideas to improve the face visually.
Started working on the body the other day. I'm trying to exaggerate t bony landmarks to really wrap my head around them (the scapula and the clavicle in this case) and because of that, I ended up with an ecorche looking model :D
I wasn't working much these past couple of weeks (relative to the effort I put in my last project) but that started changing today. Thanks to working on the body, I guess.
I'm also not doing hourly sculpts every day as I'm sculpting a fair amount for the character. Instead, I started sketching down some ideas for a small side project. I haven't done much mesh modeling in a while anyways.
