A while back I had a concept design class with Jerad and I ended up becoming a fan of his work (also learned quite a bit in the class as well).

Right now, I am in a creature development class which is taught by Alex Alvarez. The class lasts 10 weeks and we have a creature due every 2 weeks fully modeled, textured, shaded, rendered, etc and this is what I finished for the second creature.

I started with a basic poly-mesh in Maya and then exported the mesh to Zbrush. I also painted the textures in Zbrush and used Mental Ray in Maya for rendering. Fusion was used for compositing and Photoshop for some level adjustments.

Click Here for the High Res / Click for a different comp with a slightly more evil feel