The short answer is: Yes...But it also depends on the artist, art style, industry, role, specialty, etc.So, the short answer is: No... In reality a lot of things are contextual: the answer isn't absolute or mutually exclusive and isn't dependent on what tutorials are trending. Framing it that way makes the premise of the…
An example of a similar idea, with clean subdiv topo, from the Pinterest link at the bottom of the Primers section of our wiki. images courtesy of http://3dwaxcarving.com/works/
It's a bit pedantic but 'How was it done?' and 'How can it be done?' are two different questions. How was it done? Likely sculpted in Zbrush. Probably using a combination of custom alphas and brushes for the smaller details. (Possibly incorporating some remeshing or retopology steps to refine the larger shapes.) Sculpting…