Rami, Start with Poser 4, and learn the tools. While posing and animating, you will discover which parts of the body are problem areas, and why. You'll learn why everything is oriented around the hip from translation of the body in 3D space to jointing to posing. You will need ProPack for "rigging" characters (giving them bones, joints, falloff zones) and making them posable and animatable. ProPack also has a lot of nifty python scripts which will help with the workflow. For modeling, I'd suggest Carrara. It has 3 different types of modelers in it, so you can use vectors/polygons (what you usually see in game art) or metaballs, nurbs and splines for more highend work. This way, you can try the different approaches and decide which route you are more comfortable following. It is reasonably priced, too. Other folks here will swear by Ray Dream, Truespace, Animator, etc.. You can even get some of the packages as shareware to try them out. For rendering, I just got Vue 4 because you can import Poser people directly into it with textures and without fuss. I've gone from Bryce 2 to 4 in the past, and am comfortable with it, and Bryce 5 looks good. Terragen, which is free, also does nice backgrounds. No matter which tools you use, there are people in the various sections who can help you get the most from them. Carolly