I wouldn't say from scratch. More like, super editing. Regardless, I loved that fact that this project is still going on very strong. Both Samus' and the Dry Bowser renders seem...off to me. Not too sure why for Dry Bowser, but Samus looks more toy like than a suit. Still, clean work nonetheless. Keep it up guys!
The Smash 3 guys do indeed make their textures from scratch. You might be mistaking some of the non-Smash 3 team uploads for their work. A lot of "Smash 3" recolors are uploaded by non-members, and they're often of poor quality. I would include some of my older work in this, as wellThere is also Smash 3C, which isn't a team, but rather a community effort started to finish the PM alts and other notable mods that the S3 team won't be working on. By nature, that has resulted in some uneven quality of uploads, but many members now work together and we're producing better work (see the updated Smash 3C Commander Lucas or the Smash 3C Solid Snake for instance). I did the Dry Bowser render you mentioned; I had only been using Blender for a few weeks and it was mainly with Taiko's help that I had been able to produce it, but I am trying to improve. I do think it blends in fine with the Smash 3 Bowser on the CSS, though.