Attached Link: http://www.planetfuraha.org

My experience in the 3D world is limited to POV and Vue d'Esprit. Both do nice things but what I would really like to do is create animals for an alien ecology I am working on. So far, I have mostly been painting, but am thinking of expanding into computer-generated images. The image provides an example; others can be found through the link. You can see I am not talking about cats and dogs, but large six-legged animals.

I have been looking through various websites and forums, but cannot find which programs there are to design animals from scratch. Perhaps the programs can do so but the information is simply hard to find. For instance, does anyone know what kind of programs are used by professionals to produce to dinosaurs in games or movies? Can you do someting similar as an amateur?