Why do I always go for something crazy that I’ll have no time to finish? xD
crazy is good… 
Epic attempt (secretly, you finished it 
)
Dang man this is good! BTW no pressure but you got 6 hours lol! Looks super cool
That’s commitment!
Actually I did manage to finish it 3 minutes before deadline xD Panic mode was on all day long today, what with hourly challenge and then rushing to finish this…
Crazy in healthy doses 
3 minutes before deadline Alex 
Well I did submit it but it’s still a WIP… Added the cloth inside the armor (it’s just the sleeves, too bored to make the whole thing, but I might if I ever feel like making a complete armor set) and fixed the cloak.
Posting a render with eevee and a render with cycles.
So my questions are:
How to I get some of the arm skin color into cycles? And how do I soften up the shadows?
Po suggested that it might be lighting related which I think he is spot on, I did mess a little with the lighting source and it seems to be the most likely culprit.
But it’s an HDRi so, is there anything that can be done about this or should I just make my own light sources instead so I can better control their shadows and colors etc.? As always the cycles render is far superior and I’d prefer to use that if someone can shed some light on how to get the best out of both worlds
EDIT: Also which one do you guys prefer?
You can adjust the HDRI in the shader editor just like materials. Just switch from object to world and you should see your HDRI image there and so you can add all sorts of different nodes to adjust the HDRI as a whole. For example.
wow! alright alright alright! you’re the dude I’m coming to if I ever have questions about nodes Thanks man that’s very helpful, pointing me in the right direction and then I’ll experiment from there
You have tons of control with Hdr. You can even use multiple for rim lights and such. check this out. https://www.udemy.com/share/101CBOAkIfclpWR3w=/
oh awesome dude! thanks!! I’ve just been sticking an HDRi in the environment texture and leaving it at that, I had no idea you could do all these crazy things! that’s amazing, thanks for sharing that course!!
I just started watching this on the weekend! 
Cause I thought I need to know more about lighting!!!
Apart from the amazing HDRI tricks that others have shared, I sometimes just put some lamps or emission planes (or using objects to block light partially) in certain places hidden from the camera (not rendered, in the Cycles settings) to ‘fake’ (or ‘force’ might be the more suitable word) light/reflection and shadows on certain areas which might be hard to achieve by relying upon HDRI alone. Might not be as good as using environment maps, and have to be careful not to unintentionally light/cover nearby objects/elements. Just a lazy personal preference I guess, lol.
Another ‘easy’ method would be to use the compositor maybe, or just bring them over to 2D program and play with the blending modes (overlay etc.) to brighten/darken some areas as well as tweaking colors, brightness, etc.