I would advise using milkshape 3d for making models, although it costs $25. Gmax is free, and a lot of people use it, but I never could get it to export right. You can get some basic info about that stuff here.
As for skinning, it is pretty simple. Here is the tutorial where I learned how to do it, although I use Photoshop. If you don't have an image editing software that can open and save as tga, there is a free one called the Gimp, which seems to be very popular. As most people on this forum use either the Gimp, or Photoshop, I would advise one of those as you will be more likely to recieve help if you encounter a problem.
I'm on a page about incorrect corrections, and spent the better part of like two hours trying to get someone to understand that -5^2 = -25, not 25, and then that post had comments get reposted because that group is self sustaining, and that person was in turn trying to explain what I just explained to them. And I'm taking that as a victory
I will be AFK for a couple of days you guys hold down the fort while I am gone. I will be checking in on my phone but that will severly limit me. Be back saturday!
I just got to watch the video because even though I was there I was trying to work out tech problems with the chat since I was the social media guy so I was distracted but check it out guys the video is super fucking great!