Well Frank_G, i think you should play with sculpting tools , you 'll have fun and perhaps you'll make incredibl characters packages
Exactly!
I already use it. As I mentioned, I am a licensee of ZBrush and I also have license of Modo. Both can paint in 3d and do sculpting. I made some nice ZBrush objects so far.
When I start to make characters and monsters for the shop then they will go through this for sure.
Gri:
For animation you should bring the model into another software. If you are new to animation then Fragmotion is an alternative. Otherwise you can check Blender. It is a good animation tool.
But the expensive tools like Lightwave, XSI, Max and Maya can do it as well. Maya is told to be very intuitive in terms of animating.
