what should i have done to make this better? i know the textures need some work but i didnt have time to finish it.

what else can be improved upon?

http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/40118312/

I see that the lighting is abit off. Try using ambiance light instead of spot lights. Make a few ambiance light and set the intensity. differently so that some is fill light. Apart from that try to add some speckle or dust. Make it a bit dirty or worn off. Reality is the key.

u can actually touch up with adobe photoshop. the picture above i was tried to roughly touch up for ya with using adobe photoshop. sry if done bad on ur 3d drawing without ur permit. i can delete it asap.

1. Multipass rendering. Now that's awesome for touching up in PS.
2. Try throwing the scene into Maxwell Render. You might be pleasantly surprised, and might learn a few things on the way.
3. Dust/rust shaders, Final Gather (assume you're using Mental Ray) or GI? The soft shadows desperately need to be there.
4. Extra grain and color processing in PS: Optional, but it's always there if you want a mood (for example green punched sepia)

for some reason that looks much better. wonder why.

thanks for the tips guys.

theyre actually omni lights.

i'll have to lookup these terms : multipass rendering, Maxwell Render, Extra grain, Green Punched Sepia

this is the default renderer with no advanced lighting. wil try a light tracer render if im up to it

lol Grain is film grain. When you use Maxwell Render the first few hours have a grainy render, then slowly the image clears up. And if your scene low-poly and low-lights, you can use Radiosity instead. Doesn't need any time to calculate when rendering.

kinda dark
and btw i just wan to know how long is the rendering process?