Modo+Paint

Taking a modo class- I'm not very good at 3d, but it's really fun to use as a kind of pre-vis tool. I've used sketchup for a number of years, and Modo's preview-render window makes it really fun and fast to figure out your lighting. I'd like to learn Maya so I  can actually make stuff in a pipeline, but for underlays, Modo is a nice tool!
The class has however, reminded me why I do concept and not 3d: I spent weeks... several weeks fighting the software. Not just learning how to use it, but trying to make it do what I want- while I enjoy problem solving, it's very frustrating when you are being held back because you need to make the technology think like you.

Anyways, I'm not good enough to show just a render of the model so I had to paint over it to make it pretty!