ah. Thanks Dave. Cheers man. I have just been playing around and came on here to post. I will add your comments in when I next sit down to work, but going off for a bit now. I agree with the spec. Since I last rendered the character for the PS experiments I added some more lights into the scene (directionals at that) which is not helping the specularity. Twiddling with the intensity of these lights has reduced it a bit. I wonder if the problems you are seeing are still evident in this image below? The main offending area was the camera facing part of his hand near his thumb, for me.

I'm really liking this following render. In the beginning when I made the hood, I wasnt too keen on it, it was when people said they thought to keep it in that I did, but I really like the lighting and form on his neck and around, and the little highlights that are evident elsewhere on his face, when theres no hood to shadow it. Im considering keeping his hood off. Im also considering working from this next render to make adjustments to the creature and then make a new background. I dont know.

Time for a break and a walk.

p.s, Dave. I hadnt been thinking about that third layer, ears, fingers etc. Just been working with the epi and sub dermal layers. I hope we are talking about the same shader and I have just overlooked that last layer, as that could be a great addition.