and here i am.  
i took these myself. i\'m in a shower at my parents house.





i cut off all my hair recently but i don\'t have any pics of it yet.
maybe later!

you may want to check out Wings 3D.
it is an opensource modeler originally based on nendo. but now it is entirely it\'s own program.
it is intuitive and fast. there are not hundreds of menus to search through to find cryptic commands, there are fantastic edge tools, and polygon tools that would put max or maya to shame(not so much 3dsm5 coz they have some new poly tools) and of course, it costs nothing!

something to note however, this is strictly an app for modeling at the moment. BUT it does export to all the major formats. SO! if there is something like animation, or some sort of scripting that you wish to do, then you can always use another program ;)

i always reccomend this program, not just to beginners, to long time experts as well, because the potential increase in your speed is incredible. a simple interface and powerfull tools go a long way :)

wings is always under development, and the creator is always on the boards, taking suggestions and keeping people up on what is happening.

for a while, i was using wings for all my planeshift models, and then using maya to do the UV mapping.  
recently, wings made some changes to their UV tools (which are still a very early version, they will be much more powerfull in 1.0) and now i do all my planeshift work within wings. well... not textures ;) i use photoshop for that ;)

if you wish to see some of the work i have done in wings, here it is :)

http://www.vftf.com/wings/troll1.jpg
http://www.vftf.com/wings/chani/girl7.jpg
http://www.vftf.com/wings/fairy/fairy2.jpg

these are just a couple examples, there are more here.
http://www.vftf.com/wings/

i also have all the models for anyone to download here.
http://www.vftf.com/wings/models/

almost forgot a link to the site!
http://www.wings3d.com

to encourage trust in a community, we could have contracts, and feedback.

i\'m thinking of a scenario like this:
i want to hire a thug to follow me around for one game day. when i request this he tells me his fee is 12 diamonds(just a random cost) I pay him, and he hopefully follows me around helping me out as per our agreement.

Now once we make the transaction there is nothing to prevent him from skipping out except word of mouth. which is just not effective in most cases. so! could we have a small contract drawn for a service?
\"i offer my services for 1 day to player X for the sum of X gems\" or whatever the transaction really is
and each person could have a copy

when the service is up, you can discard the contract and give feedback on the service.
first rating. thumbs up? or thumbs down?possibly a 1 - 10
and then feedback. somewhere where you can give your glowing interpretation of the event, or the dark scummy kind.

when you go to hire someone you could ask to see their papers or something. effectively asking to see their feedback. if you see a favorable ratio of goods to bads, you know it is a worthy risk.

as a side note, i think it could promote more community building. so we could really have classes like a mercenary, which people could analyze and make an informed decision on.

this could be the case for craftsmen as well.
\"i commissioned Black_Smith to create me a magical ice sword, however when i received my sword it had no ice enchantment on it and he refused to reimburse me for the sword\"

i can see how using a contract for every transaction would get tiring. so i think it would be good mostly for major transactions.

just thought of something..... equipment rental? ehehe

let\'s discuss the flaws and strengths of this system :)

bbum, i think we see what you are trying to say, but don\'t understand why. the real misunderstanding here is the level on which you are comparing CS to U2K.what are your criteria for judging the relative value of each?
once we know this we can have an intelligent discussion on the topic.

I recently started working with boonet on a model for planeshift. i can say from experience that there can be alot of differences in opinion even when working from refrence. drawings are often very general and unless there is a photo of several appropriate perspectives i think there would be much left to the imagination of the modeler. that being said there is alot of personal style that goes into modeling . when i started my character with boonet, my idea of a muscular male differed greatly from his .. and when he told me to add more muscle i really misunderstood what he meant! it can be a little frustrating i admit, but it\'s important to take into consideration the overall asthetic of the game, and whether or not it fits your personal style or you would be comfortable adapting . for me it just took a little adjustment and in the end we are both happy with the final model. working with others always takes a bit of compromise. it\'s too bad a talent like kaoiii was unwilling to compromise.