Steel
Steel was another character that I liked the idea of, but wasn't always executed to my liking, so I didn't hang in there for all of his appearances.
I always liked him best when he had the original suit with the Superman S shield. I realize it would be tough to have him use that now, since that was the pre-Flashpoint universe, but I've never much liked the armor since then.
I started this one in Daz Studio with just the base figure, while everything else - the S shield, armor pieces, hammer, etc., even the logo, were created in Blender.
At the time I was working on this, a new Shader Forge brushed metal tutorial on CG Cookie had just come out, so I decided to go through that course and apply it to Steel. I thought it turned out great and I've used that shader setup in a few other pieces since then.
After the death of Superman, John Henry Irons, a man who had once been rescued by Superman, decided to use his engineering genius to continue Superman's legacy.
Constructing a powerful suit of armor, Steel became the new man of steel in Metropolis.
Basic pose in Blender. I had just added the basic cape mesh here.
I used Blender's cloth simulator with a little wind force to get the cape flowing.
Had the basic materials/textures here, but playing with the lighting.
Having fun with the lighting and volumetrics, but not quite what I wanted.
Here I was getting a lot closer with the boot jets and the lighting.
The ambient occlusion pass rendered separately for compositing in Photoshop.
The scene as set up in Blender.