So I made a mock up texture to test the resolution on the characters face. I really wasn't happy with the amount of detail I was getting in the face. The way I seperated the face in 2 peices is also causing my issues.
why does it need to be perfectly symmetrical? you can flip or merge UV shells even if some faces don't mirror on booth sides, in that case you only flip and merge the faces of the other half that match.
I have a higher texel density for the face and hair area for my model as well, because I care about the face a lot + details such as eye brows or facial detail are otherwise hard to put into the texture there- if it doesn't provide enough texture resolution.
now you only need to make good use of the efficient layout. 512x512 can be quite a lot in your case and it would be a shame if there textures were only blurry or muddy painted. Maybe paste some photos in the texture first (like the face) to see how much texels (pixels on the 3d face in the 3d view) you really have to play…
By unwrap, you mean to fully UV it right?... The reason I figured to rig it first, was because I may need to change the model if it doesn't work properly....? Bah! I am kinda at a road block (face palm)... I want to beable to pose her :(
Ideally you'd want the highest texture density around the face so you can paint more detail there, and the rest of the body to be slightly lower, but constant texture density. It's important that you keep everything the same area (ie have the squares on your model the same size) because when you get to drawing the glowing…