I think even before you start baking normal maps, you need to practice more with modeling high poly characters. I know it's not the exact answer you're looking for, but you need to improve every step of the way instead of taking shortcuts. As for the actual normal map errors, I believe there are a series of problem that…
Ah, right there. This is something new to me. I don't know about "locking normals", but now that Olingova has shared his experience about this, I know what to look up and learn about so that I can understand these types of problems. My main method for learning is Pluralsight tutorials. They show you how to do things, but…
Do you want to fix these issues or not ? If not, then keep going with the model as it is - and you will only end up frustrated, because these technical issues cannot be fixed by painting over them. That's just the way things are. If yes, then forget about the character as a whole for now and focus on, for instance, just…
If I was just working on my own, I would probably heed your advice and really go through just a single part of this model and try to fully understand the process. But right now I'm working with some others to make a game prototype, so I want to keep up with them. I really appreciate your time and good advice. You know,…
Perhaps I have taken on white water rapids before I learned to swim, but I just don't think I'm going to revert to box modeling exclusively for half a year. Maybe that would probably be a wiser thing to do, but it's just not my style. I did build this characters base with box modeling techniques, and that has really helped…