Here comes a new challenge!

So, I've been polishing the previous model:

Previous model, polycount optimized

New model, now polycount optimization free! 

Now, I am ready to take the model parts into ZBrush to start the normalmaps, and suddenly...

Chrestomathy

Before ruining Lee's vacations with my cries for help, I'll try to solve the issue by myself with the superpower of Google. Will keep updating this entry until I find a solution, or until I end up running after Lee crying for help :)

I remember in a previous exercise something similar happened. The problem was the model had faces with more than 4 vertex so I went back to Maya to run a poly cleanup (Mesh > Cleanup...  and, under "cleanup effect", "select matching polygons" and marking "faces with more than 4 sides"). I did actually find a couple of faces with more than 4 sides inside the nose, so I proceeded to subdivide them:

Chrestomathy Vol. II

Yet still this didn't solve the problem. Will keep on trying...

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UPDATE:

A TopoGun Forum User got the same problem, he says:

It seems that zbrush have problems with the floating vertex. So thats a thing we topogun - zbrush users should be aware of.

So I went to Cleanup... and played around with all the options in there. Found nonmanifold geometry in the lips caused when I merged the flipped halfs: upper and lower lips were merged together by the center. Detached merged vertex there. Still no luck.

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An user named "green" in the DigitalTutors forum suggested "Try deleting the history on the object before exporting, and in the .OBJ export options, try turning Groups, Point Groups, Materials, Smoothing, and Normals to Off."  Done that. No luck.

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Solved! 

Instead of exporting the OBJ from Maya and importing in zBrush, I exported from Maya, imported the OBJ into a new scene again in Maya, and exported the OBJ from there again. This one loads into Zbrush with no problem :)

Silly software...