Character Modelling

I have begun modelling a human shaped character, to try and gain some experience. I have never created anything remotely human like, so it has been quite interesting trying to model the shapes, especially for the head and hands. I watched a Youtube tutorial to get some inspiration and try see where I should begin, I set up some blue prints in the scene which allows me to create my model based on a template, this helps a lot as it gives me a guideline to follow to keep the shapes realistic, I try to use the blue print technique where I can as I believe this allows me to create higher standard models.
I have made some good progress so far, and I am pleased with my initial model as it does look human, however I am unsure whether this model will be used for my animation.

 

This is the first model I began creating however felt that I didn't create good enough symmetry in the lines for the joints etc., so I started on another.

 

This is the second model I created I used a box with several different lines on each side as I thought that I could create a more realistic shape, I then discovered that this became far too confusing, and time consuming as I had too many vertices to work from.

 

This is another model which I went ahead and started to create, after speaking to a colleague it was explained to me that I needed to create 'quads' so I had to rethink how I was going to create my model.