Zbrush is a polygon modeler too. It works by importing, or creating any 3D object, must be polygon based, and all quads for best performance. You can model with the edge loop function, or you can model using zspheres.

Here is a quick study I did with the new Z2. It's all made by Zspheres, and entirely posable within Z2.









What's cool about Z2, is the subd features on steroids! You can import, lets say a lowpoly model like I made here,

https://homepage.mac.com/chadtheartis...Picture-11.jpg

And once you have that model in Zbrush, you can subdivide it up to 8 levels, more if you want to get rid of the lower level history, and can sculpt this model using up to 4 million polygons. But what's really cool about the sculpting process is you can utilize the painting part of the program to alter the mesh. So if you can paint wrinkles, and folds, it will update on the model.

I haven't had much chance to play with Z2, but I like it a lot so far. Being an illustrator, not really a 3D artist, I like the ability to pose the character directly from the Z2, without having to rig it for animation.