Pardon, I carefully re-read your post. You are a 'needs to be all my own work' kind of person? I can relate to a degree because I am a render purist myself. I try to produce works in Poser that I do not need to post work. But if an elbow is messed up, it just has to be fixed in post. When it comes to shaders, even in Sketchup, you are using the program's internal material preset with the addition of the texture you added. Maybe my opinion, but these days to get 'all my own work' in 3d, you'd have to build the modeling program yourself because when you use any 3d program you are using someone's base technology to begin making shader sets. I guess it depends on how far in a purist way you wish to go.

"A lonely climber walks a tightrope to where dreams are born and never die!" - Billy Thorpe, song: Edge of Madness, album: East of Eden's Gate

Weapons of choice:

Poser Pro 2012, SR2, Paintshop Pro 8