Hi everyone,

(intro on top, if you want to get to the meat, skip the next two paragraphs)

I'm new to Carrara and 3D modeling in general. For years I've wanted to be able to model stuff in 3D and finally decided to stop wishing and do something about it. After a lot of research I splurged on the Carrara/Hexagon bundle and have spent the past 3 weeks reading, researching and practicing like mad.

It's been pretty fun but strangely exhausting. I was not making a whole lot of progress because I'd make my shapes and then the smooth operations would do crazy things to them. I'd end up with a mess or shapes that were far different then what I intended. It wasn't until I read an article from 1998 that I realized exactly HOW smoothing works and I've been able to get considerably more predictable results ever since.

After a lot of experimenting, I decided to start on a real project. Being a fantasy nut, I wanted to make some medieval weapons. I found a reference image of a mace I liked and got to work. After a few do-overs, I finally have a shape I'm happy with. Here it is using some 3 point lighting:

(I've read about 3 point lighting and understand the gist but I don't know the intricacies yet)

I started trying to shade this guy and used the built in shaders as a starting point. Problem is that most of them are reflective, which I want, but the image looks really ugly. After doing more research, I found out its because the only thing reflected back on the mace is the black surrounding. In order for reflective materials to look good, they need something to reflect (a "duh" moment for me there).

My first question is, what would more experienced modellers do here? Would you actually build out a scene around the object or is there a quicker and dirty way to do it?

My second and more important question is: I'd like to start building shaders from the ground up. I've read up a bit from the manual but that shader room is awfully intimidating. I'm not even sure what the right starting point is. I won't try to do anything fancy but I'd like to know what the typical workflow for building shaders is. For instance, I've found it hard to gauge the effects of bumpmaps on some color/texture mixtures. Is it common to do color and bumb separate and then combine them? Its stuff like that which I'm interested in learning. Any pointers will be appreciated.

Thanks