I am awestruck by the talent displayed on this website. I have always been a freehand artist, drawing mostly tattoo flash for friends and my local tattoo shop, all of which are of course 2D. I have moved on to photo manipulation as well as adding to freehand sketches I have scanned into my PC, I have used photoshop for this as well. I currently use Photoshop, Flash and Dreamweaver to make a living designing websites.. but now I want to get into the 3D realm. I have no experience in 3D and have no clue what most of the terms mean or how they apply, so what I need advice on is an easy to use 3D program for a beginner.

A few weeks ago I got one of the renderosity emails and I clicked on the link for a creation named Nefarian and my jaw just dropped, I can not stop looking at it because of it's beauty, and concept. Being a huge Sci-Fi fan I easliy saw her in my mind as an ailen race in my favorite TV Show Stargate SG-1. That aside my ultimate goal is to make 3D versions of SG-1 Characters, and 3D space ship, as well as totally original concepts. I am very active in the Sci Fi community both on and offline and I know that if I were to design videos of virtual tours in ships I have created in 3D they would go over huge.

In my off time I am writing a Sci-Fi novel and would love to make into an animated 3D movie instead. Now that I have set the bar insanely high, this is where you guys come in.

I think I know what modeling means, but have no idea how it is done, and the term render makes me see stars, everyone I talk to knows this stuff inside & out and when they offer to help.. sadly they can't seem to dumb it down enough for me to catch on. Yes I know it is pitiful. I liken myself to the character Tom Cruise played in Rolling Thunder... he could drive his ass of but couldn't tell you how many cylinders were in a car even if he was leaning on the V8 badge on the fender. I know exactly what I want to create, I can see the ships, aliens weapons and planets in my head now, I just need a way to make them into 3D creations that I can spin to show off the detail, zoom in and pose them... and eventually animate them. i tend to be a perfectionist so I need the ability to create something down to the level of stubble on a creatures face, to the shimmering puddles of oil seeping in the coridors of his well worn space craft. I have a desire to not only make full action motion movies with all these implements but also an interactive catalog of stuff like a webiste with just the aforemention items on display, like in an interactive smithsonain for people to oogle odd looking weapons with my desriptions on how they work. Who knows maybe someone will want to use them. You know Gil Hibben? He is a fantasy knife maker and his pieces have been in everything from Under Seige to Star Trek. His success is an inspiration as is H.R. Giger.

I use a Laptop that I have crammed full of memory and processing power, it is not a Mac. I hope I have specific enough it what it is i hope to accomplish for the responses to point me in the right direction. Oh and I just bought a Wacom 6x8 tablet that I love to death. Someone please help me! I can only offer my art and love in return. Need an avatar? Girlfriend turned into a frog in a pic? A husband turned into a camel, lol?

Thanking you in advance for the advice and what i hope to be the key to taking my artistsc ability to the next level.

~ Big Blue Buddha a.k.a. 3B

Hoping to be the next big thing