ahaa i see what you mean, i've sussed whats happened, 'twas messy vertices, so i've scrapped that model and gone back to my base mesh where i saw what had happened, from the ridge i had 4 vertices with 4 edges joining to just 1 vertice causing a kind of bulging, thanx dood well spotted.

So i'm gonna try and perfect the model first instead of rushing ahead to the texture/bumps&lighting, afterall thats where the eye will pick up the first underlying 'unrealness' to the whole picture, once i've perfected the model and made another attempt at the texturing/painteffects etc, i'll post it up again minus the glasses.

Hey nice tip for the lighting, i must admit when it comes to lighting, i'm never too sure whats appropriate and what isn't :bgreen: it seems to be a science in its own right, theres so many exciting areas to Maya, that i end up overlooking important fundamentals such as lighting.