can you help me with character customisation?

Hi guys,

I don’t want to talk too much about my project yet as its in the very early stages. I am a total noob so feel free to abuse me but I am not thick though. Basically step one is characters for me as its going to be a massive thing in this game. I want a character customisation close to that of saints row but with a class based medieval fantasy theme. Basically I want to give the player loads of freedom, male and female models with body customisation and facial customisation and the ability to equip different items obtained in game (swords, bows, staffs, armour) and preform different complex animations based on the class. I’m not really decided on caricature or photo-realism but I think caricature would be easier.

Basically I have no idea where to start on this is there any videos or assets that would help me? I’ve looked at youtube and i’m not really finding any guide that meets my demanding needs. Can anyone help?

The reason I have posted it here is that I need to be able to create complex animations afterwards so the skeletal mesh would be important I think?