Ok, so the pipeline I have going now is creating basic shapes with Mod Tools (was using Metaseqouia but for some reason it doesn't agree with my graphics card very well and although I love GMax it runs out of memory too easily and exporting to obj is a pain in the arse.), then working magic to make those fbx exports into obj files, cleaning those objs in Meshlab, making a UV map in UV mapper and hoping to god they'll port into Sculptris. 

From Sculptris I glue all the parts back together again in Mod Tools (and I still have yet to find a sound manner in which to get them painted other than painstaking texture projection in Mod Tools - if Mod Tools has a painter side to it, someone please point out where to find it in the haystack of menus!).

But I've realized that even though I can get all these parts proportionately subdivided in Mod Tools so that everything jives, when I port in all the objs from Sculptris again they are all heavily smoothed and not as clean to merge together.

I think it would be practical to build all the shapes of the model first and glue them together before taking them to sculptris but I have a seven year old computer and I think if I took the entire model into Sculptris I'd wind up in an eternal hourglass slide show.

Ultimately it would be awesome to be able to get those details on my poly meshes from a poly mesh modeler (like you guys all do) but I have a feeling that's advanced modeling knowledge that is going to take yonks to muster.

So, can anyone see the fall backs of gluing together Sculptris converted parts in a poly mesh modeler other than everything turning out looking He-Man toys?

Is there a more practical way that I'm overlooking?