Body Beautiful
Like creating the head, you can start by using primitives to define the basic body shape. Cylinders, spheres and boxes can be added easily, and positioned and scaled into bodyparts. Subsequently, the joint areas can be refine. Subdivision is also a popular way to create organic shapes such as the human body. I use subdivision for most of my new character models as it offers a fast and clean way to create smooth characters.

The following images shows a character model before and after subdivision:

There are a few points to take note of when modeling a character:
1. While it helps when modeling to build only half a face then mirror it, avoid perfect symmetry in the final version. Imperfection is more interesting, but perfection is more pleasing. You have to strike a balance.
2. Create the character in a pose that will facilitate texturing and animation setup. That's why most characters are modeled with their arms and legs spread.

To help you in creating bodies, check out these tutorials:
Body modeling by Peter Ratner
Female body and foot tutorials by Richard Suchy
Modeling a Hand by Wojciech Jarosz

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