In another life, another planet, long ago I actually went to the Art Institute in Italy, merrily spending 5 years drawing, sketching and just wasting my time. Got involved into 3D since 2004, on and off and finally decided that this is were my heart is, at least for today :) Tools of the trade: I do most of my modeling in ZBrush and Blender, love Blender for fine-tuning, it's just a great flexible app. ZBrush is ZBrush, one of a kind program that simply changed the game in the industry. As a former programmer, I'm in sheer amazement of what ZBrush has achieved. As a born-again-artist I'm just stunned by what we can do now with ZBrush and a laptop. Poser and DAZ Studio are my environments of choice for posing and human figure composition/animation. The latest Poser Pro 2012 has regained my interest as a truly great environment. Kudos to SmithMicro for pushing the envelope with this release. 3D, Photography, Cinematography, all good stuff.  The best part of being involved in art is that artists are the less-judgemental people on earth.
Gotta love that!