"I think you're overworked many of them so that the dirt no longer 'adds..."
I agree . Part of the learning process . As the old timers say : " don't finger f@k it " . I assume I will learn when I get to be an old timer .
The textures for this level range from the first ones being marginal to some of the later ones actually being quite good . The distribution curve is directly proportional to my Paint Shop learning curve .
Although I did a bit of reseach on how some of the mayan / inca / and aztec ruins looked when first found ( not as they look now cleaned and in some cases partially restored ) and even the sealed tombs were unbelieveably filthy . The pyramid which contained the Xoc slab as a cap on the sarcophocus had to have 400 tons (400 TONS! ) of rumble removed ( by hand no less , it took 2-1/2 years ) and had black glassy / resinous looking "poured" accretions on the walls and 'stalagmites' ( for lack of a better word ) of lime stone which had oozed through the cracks over the years , leaving ceiling to floor deposits which resembled frozen pancake dough caught in mid pour .
I think that I am leaning towards more of an over the top look simply because I like that "cartoonish" kind of exageration
The 'pool' tiles are a bit 'busy' in a noisy way and are somewhat of a cheat . they are slated for the chopping block at some point ( that point being when I figure how to make them look better without making them look like a greek bathing pool )
the "bubbles" were one of my very first attempts at making any kind of texture and got left in by mistake *(simply because I have seen it so many times they have become invisible) .
I should mention that most of the textures have been generated from scratch ( except the exit door , the sides of the gun , the bamboo ( which I am not happy with ) , the dark areas of the orange plaster , and the head and shoulders of the stand alone wall "bust" ( the headress was made from scratch , as is probably evident ) ) . At first I was resizing and layer, etc , etc ad nauseum to try and figure out to to do this or that or the other , so the textures ( especially the main white plaster texture ) do show a LOT of hammer marks.
can't make an omelette without breaking something or other : )
Oh , yeah and I am slowly nursing myself off the bevel ( high contrast ) tool and figuring out how to paint shadows / shading and highlight . I like some of the dramtic effect ofpure black and dark areas but I think some future work will benefit from handling the situation with something more sophisticaed than thet ham fists I have been using .