how to get character textures to flow? I'm very new to the whole material/texturing pipeline, and i've been having trouble figuring out how people get their materials to follow the form nicely. Like if I have a material for a scale texture, how do i get it to follow the flow of the creature's body?

I know I could go in and use a texture brush to sculpt in the details on multiresolution, then bake that into a normalmap, but is that really the best way to go about this?
The key is how you UV Unwrap your mesh. A good way to check Your UV maps is to apply a checker pattern to your mesh. There are many videos and tutorials out there that are great for becoming better at the anatomy of Unwrapping, but the best way to learn is to practice yourself. Starting with simple objects like a can, and moving on to more complex objects like a creature.