Retopology help

Suparmon

Currently I'm working on a horror like creature for a personal project.
I'm using Zbrush, Maya and for the retopology - 3DCoat, but I'm open to any suggestions that would help me with what I'm trying to achieve. 

So the problem I'm having is, the creature's head has a lot of differently shaped long spikes all around the head(they won't be animated) and I can't really wrap my head around on how to proceed with the retopology. What I was thinking is re-making the entire model without the spikes, then doing the retopology and back to zbrush to add the spikes. - Would that work?

I'm not that experienced and I'm still trying to figure a correct workflow, so any tips are appreciated.

kanga

Go to the lowest subdivision level where the spikes will be reasonably covered. Export that mesh to your retopo app and use it as the retopoed mesh. Cut off all the stuff you can reasonably retopo and add it to the spikey bits. Tweak the spikey bits so they are as efficient as possible.

kanga

You could make a copy of the model and remesh it. Try different settings on the remesh slider till you get the best result with the least polys. Cut the rest of the model away from the spikes and export that part to your retopo app. Copy the original in ZB again and decimate it in steps to about 2 or 1 percent of it original resolution. Export the result to your retopo app as a template. Place the remeshed spikes from ZB over the decimated template (they should be over each other when you import), of the rest of the model and use that as a base for you new mesh. So tweak the new spikes and pull your new model out of that mesh.

Suparmon

Thanks a lot, all is clear now.