Polygon Modelling on a Budget in your garage on the weekends
3D Modelling Creation involves a few major areas or steps
milkshape is the homebrew choice for price, compatability and community
$20USD
Jtedit should not go unoticed as a free alternative
Skinning or UVWRAPPIMNG/ MAPPING
if your lucky lithium unwrap is still hosted somewhere
or buy unwrap3d.com just for its plethora of game formats.
2D IMAGE MANIPULATION for the skin and textures. on a budget
I swear by photoshop as ive used it for about 10 years but ive also dabbled in every
2d package i can get my mitts on
the cheapest free most advanced tool i would reccomend is the Gimp.
theres also a plugin that gives the GImp a photoshop toolbar ! nice huh
paintshop pro 5 is free on the net but higher versions are about $80 US by memory
Pixia is a freaky program but its free and worth keeping around as a tool to create
base textures or patterns.
if you get ahold of any of the Painter series you will find riff files
will help generate amazing patterns using random dynamic spraycan nozzels.
look out for something called Paint.net as well.
Canvas6 was free on a magazine ages ago ( not 3dcanvas by amablis but thats a good program to get to grips with 3d with)
the texture maker application sold on this site as well is amazing at its ability
to tile and generate tiles with patterns. for many games you cant live without it.
reptile is a free program for pcs on the net that pales in comparison to the above
but they work hand in hand for cool effects.
Animation
Character FX used to be sold and had good DBP compatability but the author of that package isnt around much any more.
Milkshape is an average animator once you get to grips with its nuiances, its by far hardly the best but it will get you by, you can import .bvh now as well from poser 3.0 which is free on the net somewhere.
well that isnt industry standard but it will allow you to get started and then you can choose different tools if you go pro or go serious.
others swear by a particular package and thats very valid but each package seems to work for other people so you have to try as many as possible so you can see how your work flow correlates with the packages toolset.
eg: i use this program called amapi at the very first polygon shaping stage as i love nurb modelling at the start then i switch to polys and uvwrap it afterwards. Another Pro user might dev in 3DStudioMax and with chilliskinner perform his polygon modelling and uvwrapping then with photoshop paint on the characters skin.
Everyones gotta start somewhere
If no-one gives your an answer to a question you have asked, consider:- Is your question clear.- Did you ask nicely.- Are you showing any effort to solve the problem yourself 
