Ahh Zbrush! why you so confusing?!

So out of all the new software I had looked into the only ones I seem to be able to use, are 3ds max and blender (sort of) . Zbrush is really confusing simply tasks are made nearly impossible, such as opening a new frame or deleting an object, I have to restart the software every time, its a nightmare and not very user friendly. I've managed to change the head a little and add some details such as scars and such, I really want to add the hair as I think it really will transform the model but the best tutorial I can find, has no commentary and has been sped up so I cant follow it but the end result is exactly what I want :(
My tutor helped me find a pre-made 3DS body for me so I can simply put my head on it, I chose the body from the character Chris Redfield from Resident evil 5 as its just the right build for my character and has the right clothes I was imagining for him, plus it saves me modelling time. I opened the body in 3DS Max and removed the original characters head and replaced it with mine by merging the objects together from different scenes, after re-sizing it to fit the body I noticed that it looked a bit odd, rendering wise, on closer inspection of the wire frame I was told by my tutor the body had been 'tesselated' to allow for better quality rendering, what this means is after a model has been created in 'quads' (four sided polys) a tesselation modifier is added which splits all the polys in half into triangles, which confused/annoyed me because all the tutorials I have viewed say I MUST work in quads because the modelling process will flow better :/ Oh well I'm no expert so I can only go with it.

 After importing my head and working into it a little, happy with the front view....

....But the side view looks odd, I think the top half of the face is protruding too much, because if you cover that the rest looks pretty good

This is the downloaded body with my head on it, its not on there perfectly yet

Time limits

So as the deadline is creeping in I am starting to panic quiet alot as to the amount I have accumulated, there isnt enough in my opinion and I was really hoping at this stage to have 3 nearly complete 3d models, as of now....I have an unfinished head :/
I had planned a time table but it seems to not have been kept to, Im pretty annoyed with myself as I really wanted to complete a fully rendered character and have something impressive to present at the end of it, but I have spent too long on my concept art....so naturally to bulk out my work....I did more concept art..... don't judge me. I did however finish the cyborg concept for the wolf.

Zbrush sourcery

Zbrush is probably the most awkward piece of software I have ever used, the interface is so difficult to navigate. I can understand why so many people opt for it as all the videos and images I researched were incredible. But, my god, its like being dropped in Narnia! From the very minor experimentation I'v had with it, I've managed to create some cool things, I wont lie though, I am a bit scared of it if I'm honest :/
To get my model from Max in to Zbrush I had to save it as on object OBJ, this is like a universal file for all 3d software so I can open it all of them. To save as an obj file I had to export my model first, then save it and then open Zbrush and import it. At first I thought it wasn't working as there was nothing on the screen but it turns out its like a brush at first, and you have to paint it on the screen and then turn it into a 3d object by pressing 'T', confused yet? Me to. One of the main reasons I wanted to use Zbrush was so I could work in high resolution, because in 3DS Max the only way I could work somewhat in high resolution was to put on 'turbo smooth' which I mentioned in an earlier post.

Ive managed to draw in the scars along the face and I have altered the face slightly

Have you heard?

Ear time! probably one of the most annoyingly complicated bits to do -.- the topology for its going to mentally crush me, I mean it baffles me at the best of times but this is going to be ridiculous. Instead of drawing out my own ear I just got one off Google and drew the topology over it in Photoshop and then pasted it only the image I had already drawn (pictured below).
Going through the same process as I did drawing out the initial face and then converting it into an editable poly and then pulling out all the vertex's to give it shape.

After creating the initial ear shape I realised I hadn't created the fold along the top of the ear, so I had to 'break' lots of the vertex's to separate them and then add polys to make the folds. This took longer than I would have liked, but I am pleased with the overall outcome of it..so far

Ear attatchment

So I finished the ear...sort of, I gave up trying to attach it to the head, it was just having none of it but I did create the back of it. The logic behind it is, that I'm going to import it into Zbrush anyway, so if I just place it near the head so it looks attached it will be ok in Zbrush. It looks ok still but it really is driving me mad that I cant attach it to the head properly, even Craig my tutor is a bit stumped by it. So it begins....my fallout with max *sigh*. I need to install and read up on Zbrush now.....this will be fun.

Bowl head

After finishing the face area, I needed to start work on building the rest of the head up, this part was relatively easy, I created a sphere and re-sized it to the size on the image planes and then reshaped it to be a bit narrower as the human skull is not a perfect sphere it is sort of oval. After getting the shape right I could re adjust how many poly's it had to match up with the face panel, then I got rid of the sectioned I wouldn't need, such as the bottom part and the front bit where the face is, after getting rid of the polys I didn't need, I was left with a 'C' shape. Now all that was left to do was attach the vertex's together that are separating them and viola! A head ^.^ I did a little reshaping after as it didn't look quiet right, it was still still too spherical. Lastly for this stage I started on the neck simply by doing the method early of pulling out new polys from existing one by holding down the shift key. 

Below I added a turbo smooth modifier just to get an idea of how the rendered version would look, I'm happy with it so far, there's still time for it to go wrong :/

Face progress

 Now Iv finished the main facial area, I went ahead and added a 'symmetry modifier' this basically saves me going through the whole process again of doing the other side of the face and it makes sure its all symmetrical. Another advantage of adding this modifier is that whatever I do to one side of the face it will also happen to the other.

I found when doing the side profile, my measurements were really off, which I find baffling because I used the rulers in photoshop so it should have been spot on. Everything was either to low or too high in correspondence to the front profile, after playing around with it for a while I got it to look right.   

As you can see I made a start on filling the areas I left out in the initial mapping. The nostrils werent too difficult to do, its just getting you topology to match up and making sure they are all four sided polys as anything more or less make awkward shaped to work with and dont render very nicely.

Here I finished the lips were actually more challenging than i initially thought they would be. When working and creating more polys, instead of drawing them all in again separately a nifty time saver is to select 'edges in you 'editable poly' mode and holding down the shift key and pulling out the edge (as if to move it) will create a new poly from that one and you can select many edges at once and do this to. 

Here you will notice a smoother mesh with many more polys that the other image, this is due to a 'turbo smooth' modifier I have applied, this gives me a better idea of a rendered outcome and also if my low poly mesh is attached together properly as any polys that arnt 'welded' together will show gaps in the mesh 

Nice little close up of the overall progress, im quietly confidant at this point, Max is behaving itself....but for how long.........