Man, it keeps getting easier and easier to start a model off with the form you want.
First up is Autodesk's Photofly, which generates a model using a series of photographs.
Even with a cheaper point-and-click camera and less-than-ideal lighting, the result it generated still managed to surprise me. It's a complete mess of triangles of course, much like a scan, so I'm in the process of seeing how well it works when retopologized and cleaned up. Eventually I'll move on to sculpting in more detail, correcting the shape, and cleaning the lighting information out of the texture. So far so good though.
ZBrush: Dynamesh
ZBrush 4 Release 2 has been out for a short while now, and I'm really loving some of the new features. It's now even faster to mash a bunch of basic shapes together to get the overall form you want. This is using the same technique I mentioned a while ago, except without doing any manual retopology. Instead just pop it into zbrush, turn on dynamesh, and smooth out the joints. Before long, you're onto the fun part of sculpting.
