Cinema 4D is fantastic - base package is around $900 if I remember right - excellent modeller, rigging and animation, etc. It now (v.10 and above) comes bundled with BodyPaint so you have an industry standard UV mapping and texturing tool to boot.

XSI Foundation is $500 with again fantastic modelling tools, as well as a particle system, UVMapping, rigging and animation, etc. Apparently (and I haven't tried this yet) you can actually SWAP bones from model to model - you have the same base sizes and proportions but not rigged yet, dupe the first model and swap out the bones!

Anyway, for custom surfacing, I use Mudbox - like ZBrush it's incredible for surface detailing, but expect a high poly-count when you're done.

The nice part about Vue is that it can chomp away at billions of polys - so when you make a complex model it has no problem moving it around into position and setting up a scene around it AND a few other high poly models.

Hope this helps-
-Lew ;-)