[Question] Regarding creating custom playermodels/followers

[yolo420hahaha]

I'm attempting to make a "real" Snow Villiers follower, but before I get started I have a few concerns. My initial go-to plan is to separate his head and his body and rig them as the "nude" body model and "face" model respectively. Then, have a set of equipment that has no visual, and only stat based effects. Is this even possible to do? Is it the best, most efficient way to go about this sort of thing?

 

I'm not new to modeling, and I'm not new to modding. I've seen other people make/port "playermodels" but I've never really grasped their process. Most of the time, people port in the entire head as a helmet mesh, but I'm avoiding that because I would really like to do face animations as well.

 

I apologize if this is the wrong place to be asking this sort of thing. If this is not the correct location, please direct me to the proper establishment. Thank you!