the mutation of snake lady ( 97k image)
 

http://www.williampulley.com/snakey.jpg

I'm developing a technique to make snake skin. Here is my first attempt that shows progression...

im not too good with 3d work but I would recommend toning down the greens a bit. the scales are a bit bright and the edges are even worse. by far better than anything I could do though.

Perhaps... *ponders*

You need to have the whole wire fram a certain colour.. unless you were goin for the illuminated look.. and as Friction said.. tone down the illuminessance on the wirefram a tad.. Perhaps try a different skin tone.. maybe a mottly dark green :)

this was more of a happy accident than anything else. i wasn't trying to make snake skin from my initial idea.

the 'skin' is very uneven and blotchy. the problem is the shadows and highlights under the wireframe are interfering with the effects added to the wireframe itself. no worries. I'll figure it out. :)

What software are you using?

I know in Maya you can key procedural texture values, even bump values and transparency settings. Just set up a layered shader with the human skin on one node, and the snake skin on the other. Then just key the transparencies between the two. You could even set up a new attribute and load a set driven key so you could choose between different states of change.

But thats just Maya :)

Oh, and are you going to use blendshapes to cue a geometry change as well?

I'm just using Poser 5 as a basic model and editing the image in Photoshop. I'm also experimenting with KPT filters. I'm still working on the final product...

Ohhhh...

Well, disregard what I said then... unless you plan on moving into a more serious 3D package. Then what I said still applies :D