jpaluck,

thanks for your advice and those pretty good images of your work.

I think I mentionned I was going to give Blender a good run and I think I've potentially found the ideal tool for me. There's an add-on called BSurfaces and this thing basically those magic for both modeling and retopo in combination with either Curves or sketched strokes (grease).

I seriously think, especially for retopo, I wont find something easier to use then this. see this link http://vimeo.com/26339130 Though I still have quite a bit of learning to do, I think the worst part will be "training" myself to become somewhat more productive. Basically, say I did something in Moi, my prefered program, export it in Blender, now I couldn't care less of quads and or triangle anymore, use BSurface in combination with the grease tool to obtain a nice topology to work with and go on from there with the various tools Blender as to offer like sculpting, proportional editing and the works.

When I become more verse with the retopology route, I'll try to do some modelling directly in Blender using the same basic tools. I was a teacher in another life and I know very well the route one as to take to acquire the required skills to do this kind of work. I also know that having good skills at whatever doesn't make you an "artist" but with every artist you will find, you can be pretty sure he/she as pretty good skill at what he/she does.

This is the main reason I don't want to spent money in software at this time, I need first to learn a lot of things say at the theorical level, then I'll have to acquire the skills to do what I want. If I realise that I can't then so be it but if I can, the next step is, can I be an "artist" at this? If no then again it will probably be the end of this for me and I'll either do something else or maybe I'll try to find someone willing to sell me is work with exclusive rights on then.

Currently, I do this kind of work here:





It's basically hand made including the coloring and finish, it's a real pleasure for me to do that kind of work but it takes forever. The worst case scenario for me is that I'll just keep doing similar work but I'll try to make more then 1 per year, I think I have an idea for doing this a little bit faster.

Maybe next year, I'll do something like this one below, I've already done the design except obviously for the carved details and all in Moi of course.



While writing this, I had kind of a flash and it all became very clear to me. I know exactly what I'll do from now on. In case you wonder, it will have nothing to do with carving, I'll stick with stuff I can do in Moi and that's all it's going to be.

Many thanks to you and other folks here,
Felix