My workflow can be funny in that I will experiment with different techniques from portrait to portrait. They’re usually small things, like leaving an open hole for the pupil or accomplishing it with a closed plane + gradient texture. In this case, neither has necessarily won out as the definitively best option so it kind of comes down to whatever I’m feeling in the moment.
The latter is what I was referring to. Instead of leaving an open hole, simply fill the hole with a face (or leave it filled from the beginning). From there you can accomplish the pupil look by adding a flag (black) in the spherical gradient node you used for the iris. If not adding it to the iris specifically, you could add as a separate gradient for the pupil only, but the implementation is the same idea: Black gradient flag on the correct end of the ramp will produce a black, pupil-like circle. This can be adjusted to the desired size AND be feathered out on the edge so it’s not so harsh.
Does that make sense?
