[greymalkin]

I am just new to 3d modeling and am trying to learn some of the vocabulary. Please excuse my incorrect use of any terms. My objective is to make models of people and animals and be able to unwrap them like you do in Pepakura(only for PCs) and then cut them out and glue them together to make paper models. I have been looking at many, many applications for the past 2 weeks and see that some programs only model, some render, some unfold/unwrap like Pepakura, some only paint zBrush? some cost $5,000 or $3,995. Presentlly I have downloaded and played with and looked at tutorials for Blender, Silo, Hexagon, AC3D. I use an Intel iMac. All I know for sure is I don't want to make real boxy models, but believe smoothing takes care of some of that. I have been doing all the different tutorials and feel it is time to make a decision. So far, Blender looks great but is complicated, Hexagon doesn't do a lot for me, I like Silo and AC3D. Things like Maya and thousand dollar things are not a consideration. What program do you think would be best for making paper models? Some will be of people from the MIddle Ages and have a lot of detail. Thank you for any help. greymalkin