This is what I’ve ended up with after 3 days of ignoring my responsibilities.
There’s still a fair bit of work to do, some topology adjustments to be made. And then I get to figure out how to put hair on him, and build the inside of his mouth. His face shape took a LOT of tweaking, his body was done in about a day and a few hours, his head took the rest of the time.
I used a temporary tessellation modifier on just the body mesh for rendering, so it’s a fair bit smoother than the base model.
At the moment there are no textures, just flat coloured materials. Even the eyebrows are just coloured polygons. Also those eyes actually have lenses, and irises that I should be able to animate easily.
The decision to go with a bit more realism in the hooves and ears should pay off, since it’ll actually make them easier to animate, and once the hair is on I’m sure his head will look less strange.
I’m probably going to slow down on this, or take the day off. But I really can’t wait to get the inside of his mouth finished up, and get him textured and rigged.