I too prefer the strip method. I start with the loop strips for the lips/mouth and eyes, then build the nose from a strip along the profile mid line, and then fill in the spaces in between to form the front facial mask.

Next fill out the basic skull and neck.

and then delete a group of poly's where the ear attaches and model the ear and attach it to the opening. Since I hate modeling ears I have one I pre-modeled and I usually just drop that one in and then use a lattice deformer to match up with my reference.

However, sculpting now seems to be the new hotness for organic modeling, unfortunately I suck at sculpting and most everything I try to sculpt just comes out looking like some form of mutant potato.

It's okay though as I prefer focusing on hard surface modeling; although that too is also quickly becoming dominated by sculpting tools like zbrush.

For sculpting the workflow seems to be make a simple base mesh with proper topology in Maya (or fill in your poly modeling app here) and the send it over to zbrush subdivide to somewhere in the rough neighborhood of a bazillion polygons (give or take) and then sculpt away (but don't turn it into a mutated potato!).