Character study - "Sledgehammer" looking at the camera - Garry's Mod

I like the rain running down but if you wanted to go for realism, you'd have more running down. Though maybe you were going for something more stylistic. One thing that does bother me is the rain dripping off the helmet looks... Weird. Something about the color scheme seems weird, though I'm afraid that is probably just personal taste of mine. Only minor flaws in an otherwise greatly edited picture. I love the texturing done here. Never learned how to do so myself so every time I see it done so well, I feel the need to compliment it. Overall great work done here. =D

Muchas gracias for all the comments in my absence, everyone!

It's pretty good. But there is room for a lot of improvement. What I usually did with the rain effect before was that I made 3-5 different layers of rain in different sizes and randomly erase parts of each of them away with a big soft brush. That way you get more dynamic and life-like rain that is both in the foreground and background. Add some slight blur on the smaller rain layers as they are in the background. Some heavier blur on the foreground unless your point of focus is all up in the camera. The shading also seems a bit too obviously burned and dodged on the helmet, and especially on the body. If I'm wrong and you haven't used that tool then it's some bad bumpmapping. You should avoid having these balls of shade that is easily made by lowering the strength of the dodge and burn tool and make quick strokes. If you make the strokes too slow or go over the area too many times it'll become too obvious and "blobby". But it looks pretty good on his face. The problem with the shades on the body is that it's way too strong and doesn't match the lightning on the helmet which is much better. The background also doesn't imply any source of light coming from the right side either, so when it's that strong it becomes too fake. The shading is again too round and blobby. It's like a ball rolled over it, you shaded the right areas and paths but with an incorrect shape. There are also white edges around the helmet from a sloppy job going around the edge with the polygon lasso tool / pen tool (or whatever you chose). It could have worked pretty well if you turned it into splashes from the rain hitting the helmet. The wound is pretty cool but too dry and lacks any depth, the soft brush fading around it is also too visible. What you should do is use the dodge and burn tool to mark out the edges of the wound (not the edge of it, but all the edges inside the wound) so that the wound goes inside the skin. Mainly just use the burn tool and use the dodge tool lightly to mark out the skin that pops out a bit and similar things. Overall he seems very dry too. Much to do with all the clearly visible textures and sharpening. I don't really have any experience in making things wet though. All I know is that it doesn't help to add dripping water on the character if the character doesn't look wet. Typical things that creates wet look is darkened clothes that are bulgy and wrinkly and the skin becomes a victim of shiny reflections from water running down on it. Blood could also need a bit more splattered effect. Look up some brushes and incorporate them. But don't overdo the splash effect, just a drop or three slightly away from the main blob of blood. Not 50 billion blood drops 5 meters away from the area of impact. That would be my 5 cents.

Many, many thanks for the detailed critique.

Rain needs some tweaking.

I don't see why you'd think you're out of practice, looks the same as it always does - by which I mean you've done another sterling job.