So i happened to come across the Marmoset toolbag render programme webpage - anyhow in there there are some amazing tutorials on lighting and more importantly for me skin shading - obviously marmoset and blender are way different but that doesnt mean that the techniques cant be emulated in our own way.
One thing that i found particularly interesting is the use of translucency maps on skin with the translucent color set to red.
what essentially is achieved is a subsurface scatter effect but you have control of where it should be happening.
all excited i did a very fast alpha transparency of certain areas of the MH skin texture - mainly the ears and slightly on the nose - i am thinking to sit and do this properly as i do quite like the result - one would then obviously do the fingers and the skin between them.
at first i was trying to get the perfect balance of how much to erase the skin texture in Photoshop - after which i realized that the simple thing to do is have it strong, so that in blender you can control it simply by mixing the diffuse and the translucency in with the alpha set as the factor then adding another mix node with the result of the previous one being mixed with the plain diffuse once again - but this time the factor can be slid manually to allow for the strength required. (that sounds confusing but is really simple)
anyways here is the result of what i am talking about -
in the first image i have the translucent added as is from my erasing in photoshop
and in the second image i have adjusted the strength as described above.