3D printing of Digitally Sculpted Head Sculpts

[zbrushman]

Hello fellow customizers and collectors! I'm currently setting up a 3d printing workshop at home and experimenting with production methods for digitally sculpted characters and creatures. I'm a digital artist specializing in character modeling using such applications as Zbrush and Maya, and I want to delve into creating and customizing my own sixth scale figures for possible production upscaling in the future to offer collectors.
I had several questions that may help me on my quest that perhaps a fellow customizer or collector can help me out with.

1. How does one go about taking a completed digital head sculpt and prepping it so that it is the correct size and dimension for attaching to a 1/6th scale body? Does the STL software have those measurements built in, or are there specific sixth scale, standard dimensions that I can acquire. I know that perhaps measuring an actual sixth scale head would be prudent, but I'm curious if these dimensions can be setup using the STL prep software in applications such as Zbrush or Maya.

2. How does one go about digitally prepping the neck attachment of a head sculpt in the software? Again, I am familiar with methods such as using booleans for adding or subtracting shapes from a model, but I'm curious how other artists approach this.

3. What are some of the tools for painting and finishing recommended by experienced artists?

4. Perhaps someone has links to tutorials or PDFs for me to read through regarding the subject?

Any and all help would be greatly appreciated!, and I thank you in advance!

 

[Drawbak]

I measure a comparable HT head with calipers (female heads are usually around 2.9 cm ear to ear), any neck pegs, ball joints etc.
2. I make the pegs in Maya, where exact measurements are straightforward. Then import into Zbrush. Boolean substract and boom. (Anything w/a ball joint I make a cone pointed into the ball to allow the space needed for movement.) That's worked every time for me so far. I also now have a ruler model in ZB for a second opinion.
I generally leave the painting, if any is needed, to specialists.

Good questions. Good luck!
I'm curious how others approach this as well. Following.

 

[FrikiFan]

This thread is so very interesting! For what concerns my work so far I use the perfect measure I want to subtract in Meshmixer with boolean... where I also check if the file have some error It is a nice free help (Meshmixer)