Very Cool thread, inspirational artwork, and I enjoyed reading your thought process, just one thing I thought you might be interested in knowing, traditional sculptors actually make use of symmetry by way of sculpting using both hands, watch this demo in case you are interested:
Some times he used both hands when hes doing block in mayor symmetric forms, and he switches back and forth between using two or
one had, which would be akin to hitting the symmetry button on Zbrush, or like on that other body issue sculpt you did in which you
used symmetry for the arms and head, but made the legs as stand alone pieces, that would be the same way a traditional sculptor would
work, what I mean by all this is that you can handicap you self by not using symmetry all, but I don’t believe this makes
you all that better or worse a sculptor, the final end result is more important times than how you get there, mind me that some times
the process is more important that the end result, but it this case I believe not using symmetry is just a bit of waste of time.
The reason I also wrote this is because I have often though the same thing as in, should I use, or not use, the symmetry features.
and since traditional sculptors also make use of this feature (or any other trick that makes their life easier) I arrived to the
conclusion that it’s really is a non issue, and just hop in and out of it as I see fit.
Either way I really like your work and it has inspired me to keep trying to get better.
Best of luck on them studies!