[Soukup]

if you could post your specs of your computer that could help a little.

There is no right way to make a character, and I know of only one way, but something that we did with our character this year is when we were done we optimized it. (this is in the modifier panel) your computer will slow down because of a high polygon count. A lower polygon count make your computer move faster. We found this put the hard way when a scene showed up with about 30 million polygons.

You can check polygons by going into the utilities toolbar (one of the six tab menus on the left) and clicking more. You'll then find polygon counter. This has always been a big help to me.

hope that helps a little.