Following on from my previous post I've worked a little bit more on the girl character I showed.
Normally when I model characters I'll go through the process of sculpting and modelling them in a T or A pose. This has obvious advantages when it comes to modelling and production, not least of all because it allows for symmetrical modelling, a big time saver and obviously the character is clean and can be rigged with ease and unwrapped symmetrically, also this workflow is very important when producing characters for an animation pipeline.
If I'm just working in ZBrush I'd send the model over to Transpose master and pose it up. Good, done. The problem with this is that I've been finding myself a little bit held back by how far I can push a pose in Transpose master without pushing and pulling the geometry too far.
For this girl character I'm skipping the T pose stage and working directly on my posed base mesh. Working this way allows me to focus on the pose first and really work in to some dynamic shapes, and hopefully a more compelling character design. Of course this workflow has it's drawbacks - you have to be sure of what you want to achieve early on. Extreme changes to the pose aren't going to be easy, which is why I still find it helpful to draw up some ideas before working in 3d.
Some parts of the model can still be worked on as symmetrical subtools, such as the face before expressions, and the hands. both of these I intend to dynamesh in to the model later.
I know a lot of people work this way and I can see why, it feels like it cuts out a significant portion of the workflow and gets you straight in to the picture making bit :)