I apparently did not post yesterday's update here. Shame on me. Not as much as I wanted to get done, but it's progress. There won't be any tonight though - I had a social life and now I'm going to bed.
The skins a filter and/or photosourced? You'd definitely get a better look if you hand painted it. The texture pattern looks much too large and pronounced compared to some of the images I've seen and for the rest the pattern doesn't seem to match. Also add opacity to your render for more awesome on the feathered layers 8)
You can use the fancy code if you want by clicking the "My Media" button, as such: https://jkhub.org/files/file/1189-jedi-knight-logo-saber/ Also, file approved. Enjoy all.
My only suggestion on the UVs from my own experiences is you'll get the best and most consistent result with your textures if the check pattern is consistently the same size. I used to not pay much attention - just made sure they were all square - but my work has looked a lot better when they're all scaled consistently.
There's some goofy shading on the middle pic that might indicate some awkward topology. You might want to look at that and see if it needs clean up before mapping.