So here's the "hey, take a look at my vast collection of tools" section of this page. That may sound a little ironic, but I don't really like this kind of showing off what you've got. But I know that people are interested in this stuff (and I suppose that this is the reason why you are reading this at the moment and to be honest, so would I) - so let's take a look at my personal arsenal.;-)
I'm using quite a lot of programs for my work some of them are quite expensive, others can be found for free, somewhere in the neverending depths of the internet. It has taken a few years to get all of them together and I tend to buy older versions of a program, as they aren't as expensive as the newer versions. This has changed a little bit lately, but this was more or less due to the need of updating some of them.
However, this text will be concentrating on the programs I am using frequently, not on everything I have ever bought or tried.
The program that has started it all for me is, of course, Poser. I have started with Poser 5 and right now I am using Poser 7 Pro for most of my renders. Some renders may have been done in Vue d'Esprit 6, but I'm not much more than just a simple beginner in this program.
Postwork or painted stuff is mostly done in Photoshop CS3 in its german version at the moment. I have tried some other programs like Painter 8 for a while and also Photo Impact or Paint Shop Pro, but I really prefer Photoshop over the others… it's a kind of bad luck, that it is the most expensive. ;-)
So these are my basics for doing images, but when it comes to modelling, texturing and morphing, there are a few other applications that will make this set complete.
I'm really in love with Hexagon 2 for modelling, even though it's quite buggy and you have to learn to get used to its little individualisms. But once you get to know what it doesn't like you to do, you will be rewarded with a reliable and easy to use modelling software.
Zbrush 3 is complementing Hexagon for organic stuff like morphing faces and bodies, while Deep Paint 3D is taking care of seam issues in texturing. Projection Painting has made my life as a texturer a lot easier and it is much better to stamp and paint over seams instead of painstakingly removing them in Photoshop.
The last program in this modelling and texturing ensemble is UV Mapper Professional. I have worked with UV Mapper Classic for a long time, but there's no way to compare the both of them, when you are seriously working with uv mapping.
And this is quite everything I need when working on new models - but of course, there are those little free programs you just can't live without. Just like Morph Manager, CR2 Editor, Pozers Little Helper or Proton. Everyone of these little helpful darlings is invaluable.
And last but not least - my Wacom Intuos 3 A4. You can't imagine how proud I was, when it finally moved to my workplace.
And that's it - apart from a lot of coffee, chocolate and I-Tunes to keep me from going nuts when I run into another hair pulling situation…