question on building a model

[minnerva]

okay so i started building the face of the model and i have a couple of questions, see if i could get some help with them.

first is that it seems i am ending up making too many polygons to make the shape of the face. any were i could learn how many poly to support the face?


the second is, would it be better to make the model with armor already on or add the armor later. trying to get a model to look like the armor is separate from the body. someone made a model that made the armor to either separate or made it look like it was a separate object.

i asked him some questions but no reply.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azDJLY-qXSg

at first i thought that was just a toy model that my friend that is modeling wow characters had seen but also saw this under the maker's videos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2pilFCdby4