I wanted to revisit an old project I had done last year. I started doing a head sculpt of an orge in Mudbox, but never got around to doing the textures. Since I have some time between school, I wanted to keep my skills up. I started doing a high resolution version of the head, then began painting it by hand in Mudbox. After a few days, I got the textures done.
I used a special type of mental ray shader called a "subsurface scattering" shader. It basically simulates how light passes through certain types of translucent surfaces like wax, jade, and even skin. As such, you wind up adjusting colors on the epidermal, subdermal, and deep tissue layers to get the right effect. You can tell from the ogre's skin that it has light scattering through it before it returns out. On the ears, you can get the deep tissue effect where light is somewhat visible through the shallow tissues.
Overall, it could be better, but this was mainly for my own learning. I've never worked with subsurface scattering shaders before, so I wanted the experience.