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Great topic here. There's something to be said for both methods - working from life or from photos, or working from your imagination. I would think it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to paint a figure without some sort of reference since you have to think about light and color and not just form. I suppose with enough years of experience under your belt, it becomes second nature.
Sometimes I think that working from life is easier - just sculpt what you see. Funny thing is, it is often more difficult to make a person sitting in front of you than it is to make a made up person, because it has to look like the person.
On the other hand, I currently have about 9 unfinished pieces sitting in my studio that went incredibly fast in the beginning, but then I got stuck and never finished them. My knowledge of anatomy only goes so far, and then I need to find a model with a similar body type to work out the problem areas convincingly.
Every idea for a sculpture that I've had that was not a portrait started out as a scribble on a sticky note. I have tons of those scribbles though that never made it to the clay stage.
As a side note, I would say for the most part that pieces made strictly from a person's imagination tend to be more interesting than those that are mainly based on a photo.
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