And I didn't find the nicholasbishop tutorial very helpful and don't have all day to download a 15 minute video. The tool looks interesting, but this has been a long standing problem with Blender, relying on users to write tutorials that don't have a clue how to write.

i have a clue how to write, usualy, i'll think about doing something when i finish the nodes tutorial and the 3 tests i have coming up. first, i'd need to learn to use the retopo tool.  it seems to be kind of like a constrain to floor except with every vertex, and constrain to surface of mesh.

Its pretty straight forward.I can't do a whole tutorial but I can show you a quick example.

Press 1 on the numpad, then add a 32x32 UV sphere. This will be our "original mesh".

Tab back into object mode, and add a plane. Angle your view to the side a little and press G,Y and move the plane in front of the sphere.

Now press 1 on the numpad again and subdivide the plane a few times.

Now click the retopo button, in the mesh panel.

Now the plane should be plastered to the sphere like so! You might have to Grab the plane then release to get it to update.

It totally depends on the angle you are viewing from. It uses the z-buffer for speed. Now as you move the plane around it will deform to the sphere in real-time.

Let me make some more pics and Ill do a little retopo paint example if you want.

right now, i am working on remodeling my head with retopo, and its coming out way better than what i had expected.  what i think would be cool if we could start a retopo topology tricks thread because just knowing how to press the retopo button wont fix your topology.  but the paint part i have not been able to figure out whatsoever. 

That would be great. OldSkool's mini-tute helped and I am able to replicate his retopo feat. I am looking forward to learning more about this new tool. The sculpt mode was pretty easy to figure out. :O)

Yea the new sculpting tool as alot better than the old one. Not really my style, but I would prolly get more enjoyment out of it if I had a tablet to work with.

I did a quick example of retopo paint here if you wanna check it out, this is the really amazing part of the tool I think. I dont want to start much with it till the official release, but here is a little text of it with a sphere.

Press 1 on the numpad and add a 32x32 UV sphere. This will be the "original mesh".

Next make sure the cursor is out in front of the sphere a little.

Next was the tricky part. You can only retopo paint in edit mode, BUT the new mesh you paint wont deform to another mesh that is in edit mode at the same time. So while in object mode, I added a plane, then deleted all the vertices. This has me in edit mode,  ready to start painting a new mesh. You can see the centerpoint in the middle of the 3d cursor. Im not sure if this is the proper way, but there is very little info on this yet and this is how I got it to work the way I wanted it to.

Now click the retopo button and the paint button.(or Pain button, lol)

Now press 1 on the numpad to reset to front view. You'll see 3 different paint tools. One is for circles, one is for lines, and one is freehand. I made a few lines using the line tool. Remember, all Blender keeps up with are where the lines intersect, for verts.

You can angle your view a little to see how the lines are following the shape of the sphere.

When you TAB out of edit mode, it will convert the lines into a new mesh. I then tabbed back into edit mode for this picture so you can see how the mesh follows the shape of the sphere.

Like I say I haven't done too much with this yet, but seems like theres alot of possibilities. You can move and extrude from this new mesh, and everything will still conform the the background object. Now we can model our faces willy nilly and worry about "proper topology" later :) Also seems like an excellent way to model conforming clothing!

oodmb that is a good suggestion. Proper topology is a subject of much debate! And it is a subject I tend to look over, lol. If it looks good in the final animation, I am not to concerned that my topology isn't "proper". There is alot for me to learn in that area :)

vERY HELPFUL INDEED. yOU EXPLAINED IT VERY WELL.

its not even that its necessary for animation, its necessary in general.  when you learn about proper topology and start thinking out your mesh before you create it(now we can create then think yay)  it becomes easier to model, you find that what you are creating comes out much nicer much quicker and is easier to edit.

I've seen a lot of meshes in my day and some of them are shoddily modeled to say the least. The new Blender tools make it much easier to model properly and even take badly modeled meshes and remake them the right way. I think I now have the hang of the retopo and now it's just a question of improving my touch with it.