it’s a good way to just model a lowpoly first, tracing a referance as good as possible. And then adding detail. You could even add an meshsmooth modifier, and collapse that to an editable poly again, just so you’ll have more vertexes to work with…
And I usually trace the referance as tight as possible first, then i start to change it the way i want it to look like. that way you’ll see more of the anatomy at the beginning. It’s easier to get good anatomy that way i think.
Since it’s not an animation, the polycount isnt that strict. Just add as much detail you want to, and don’t fake things, that will decrease the quality of the image