@sven-da-man: Thnx
Well, Its not just modelling I've been focusing on, its the whole shibang. Even my worthless high school 3DS Max teacher only taught the class what tools did and how they were useful for moedlling. When it came time to make our own characters, he just had us draw our own ref, okay it with him and then let us loose. I don't think he mentioned polyflow once, and for that I'm pretty steamed that he would neglect such an obviously integral part in character design. I remember how many characters looked like ****. Its no wonder I won the expo, nobody there was properly trained. I only had the advantage because I'd been self-teaching for a year before taking the class, and none of them had the program at home.
So of course I thought what you see is what you get. That's why my models had crappy polyflow, because I was taught to aim for look, not functionality or flow.
@Shady D: Thank you again =). I'm glad I'm finally on the right track. There are some tweaks I'd like to make as far as the clavicle/neck area goes but hopefully I can knock it together nice and neat. I focused last night on eliminating 5+ sided polys, which thankfully were in short supply. I think I'll have to work with how I divided them though, because I don't think I want really squished polys replacing the 5+ polys. I'll see what I can do.
Yeah, since I'm trying to do 3D movies, I like my characters to have everything "under the hood" and then have seperate objects for clothing. It adds a realism factor, especially if my character's clothes are damaged in the scene, or if he changes uniform. I prefer having a solid "flesh and bone" base to which I can add features like different hair/clothes/etc. so I can say...have him transform into a Super Saiyan without having to make another model specific for the form. So the character's features change, but the character itself does not.
Of course, for a physical change, like for the protuberant eyebrow ridge of the SS3 transformation, I can just have the eyebrow ridge be a morph target along with the facial animations. When I animate him as SS3, I just remember his eyelids and mouth make up his expressions and his eyebrows remain rigid.
That's why I start nude. Of course, there is always the problem of skin poking through the clothes. That thankfully, is an easy fix. I just go into the geometry and hide the polys that will not be seen, and summon them again when needed. That's how it works in movies isn't it?