I've been working on the Paul Steed book, and i read on today about the torso, but i have a question. In the book to make Callistos torso, he uses splines, and surfaces and so on. I would just like to know whether or not this is good practice. I heard their are a few things in the book which were good in their time but are now quited dated.
Is making torsos out of splines good practice or should i just use cylindres?
It's up to you. Give both a try. You can use a cylinder or a cube (and add in detail as you need it). You could even extrude the edges. It wont actually make your model go from looking sweet, to looking like crap :) The reason why there are so many tools and methods available is because a lot of people have different workflows. Find one that works for you and practice it :)
IMO its the end results that matter, if using splines gets you there easier and quicker than any other way, and it does the job for whats required, then build things however you want.
Its really a matter with what suits you, personally i tend to use generic shapes for low poly characters, rather than make a few splines and use various modifiers to create a shape based on those splines.