Need help with skin texture on small head sculpt

[Smileybruh405]

I have been working on this sculpt for a bit now and have gotten to a point where the skin texture (pores, wrinkles, etc) is the only thing left to do on this. But I am not satisfied with the results. I have been using a fine stipple brush and food wrap but I do not get convincing textures from them. I've seen tutorials on full scale sculpts but have not seen any for small scale sculpts. This sculpt is 1/2 scale.

 

[Too Much Garlic]

That sculpt looks rather creepy. Cool.

In my view it looks pretty decent. Not too exaggerated, which many sculptors seem to do these days. One thing is to study directions and patterns of pores on your own face. It's not just random dots. They change shape, size and direction depending on where on the face they are located. Adding that kind of detail is important to making it look good.

But remember... keep it subtle. It should basically only be hinted at, not overly visible, as that looks really bad.

 

[DarkHelmet]

I actually think the texture looks great!! It's not overdone as most of us sculptors tend to do.

 

[aaronv2]

These are just my personal thoughts but at that scale I think skin texture would not "read" to the human eye and you could get away with simulating it somewhat if you decide to paint it using paint techniques. However what I would suggest is that the wrinkles and folds in this character to me personally do not feel like they have gravity or weight to them. They just look like lines put in where wrinkles would be. And some key elements to the facial anatomy of a human are just plain missing. For example the nasolabial fold lacks plumpness and heaviness to suggest it is heavy skin that has weight to it. It to me looks rather flat however I do like the sort of "Bells Palsy" look which I guess looking at the pic you have drooped his opposite eye.
I am pretty new here so I am not sure how much my opinion holds weight. But I think you would benefit more (at that scale) to focus on wrinkle anatomy and enhance the sagging forms and perhaps add "lumps" to the face that will read at that scale and try and nail the skin texture in the paintwork. Now the image I have attached might be far older than what you are going for, but it might help illustrate what I mean by how skin sags as wrinkles form and there are a few "lumps" in there too which might be a characteristic that will help making your character more "ugly" without having to exaggerate skin tone but rather including forms that will translate to the scale you are using.

Again I am by far no expert. I am just offering my opinion on your sculpt where the overall opinion is I think skip the skin texture on the sculpt and focus on the forms which I think at this stage look promising but could use some "gravity". Then you can achieve the skin details through the paint work through a speckling technique or something similar. Especially if his face is being pulled down by some kind of defect or illness or even just age. I mean to take some inspo from a movie Efialtes in 300. You can see what he lacks in facial texture his ugliness has been made through exaggeration of folds, bumps and form. Which will definitely catch light and add detail to really sell the face at the scale you are using.