Creation of a Character for V4 or Genesis?

ArtXtreme101

Hey everyone! So I have a couple questions that I hope a few of you can answer. I've browsed through some of the forums on here, but I haven't really found what I was looking for so I thought I would post on here...
I've been using DAZ Studio for around three years now and I really want to try and create my own character. (I'm not horribly into a lot of morph creation...I was thinking more texture based) and I was wondering if anyone could tell me a list of steps (overview) that I would go through to do that and if it's possible to do without spending a whole bunch of money (or any). I have a high quality camera (Canon 7d), I have DAZ Studio, Photoshop CS6, and GIMP...What other software should I have and what would be the very first thing I should do? Any help or tips (or tutorials) you guys have would be greatly appreciated!