Rickei....
My main objective ('cause I'm old school illustrator, I guess) is to avoid uv mapping... it is just foreign stuff, too mechanical, etc. That is one of the reasons I am keen on 3d painting (when it works) - because it is like painting on a canvas in many ways to me... paint what you see and feel where you can see what happens instead of on some uv map maze... uggh!
I have been mesmerized by Zbrush for a long time... so you may be right. I guess I will have to lock myself up in a bungalow with zBrush and force-feed myself the ui. I'm sure you are right, once I know it it would be a done deal. Lots of fine artists doing awesome stuff with it.
My attitude is why I prefer the sculpting ways of modeling with apps like MudBox
- they are intuitive to the artist side of my inner id...
I'm probably crazy to get so involved with 3D.... but I'm madly in love with it and it's like getting mired in quicksand. I would just like to do things in 3d more like the ways I do them with paint and brush (or now Painter and pen tablet.) - -
It's a quest... maybe for something that does not exist... but I'm having a blast.
Thanks, everyone for the great ideas and leads. I am getting a valuable education and will feel better about my choices for having friends on a forum like PolyLooped. (.... sorry Thomas... is that a drunk parrot?
)