question for face sculpt, retopo, and rigging

ChrisTheArtist

Ok this is a question for character art people. Do you guys typically sculpt your mouth closed or open. If open do you leave it open for re topology and do you close it back up between programs?  

oglu

Closed but the lips arnt touching. And i do blendshapes for animation testing and texturing. 

kanga

Open for sculpting, so there is a sack behind the lips just in case I need to fill it. Mostly the lowpoly's lips are closed.

EvilCG

Both ways are viable, as long as you get comfortable with using the transpose tool to open and close it when needed.
For aesthetics, it's easier to sculpt with mouth closed as most references come this way. And when you are done sculpting, you can open it using transpose tool and then have an easier time retopology. 

Mark Dygert

As an animator who usually does the rigging and skinning I'm fine if artists want to sculpt it closed. I do prefer it to be slightly open when we get to the retop, rigging and skinning phase, but that isn't all that important and just personal preference. Just as long as the lips aren't welded together you can pretty much do it either way.

When I skin a closed mouth I usually animate the jaw bone opened and then paint weights so things snap down to it. If the lips are penetrating it can be a little annoying but honestly there are a lot of other things that are a bigger pain in the ass, this barely registers on the radar, heh.