Maya hot boxes. it's like magic. Oh and the material editor nodes. I like visual stuff when it comes to setting up things. I think that's why I learned UE3 so quickly.
Dude I only quickly glanced at the pics, and a look of sheer shock and terror flashed over my face, before i realised you WERENT breastfeeding in that second shot! PHEW! ! Awesome character man!
Good lord.... Apart from Vitaly being incredibly quick and fluid I have to say that XSI's modelling toolset looks completely solid. I can't imagine doing things this quickly in max or maya.
I wouldn't say that Max/Maya are necessary, they are just tools, the knowledge is transferrable, he'll pick it up quickly once he gets to it. Though as said, it does help to have some experience with any of them.
If it's a small scene then there's no real reason to use foliage. You can just make groups of assets and place those. Foliage is only useful if you've got a huge scene and you want to quickly cover it with plants.
I would recommend Unity to him. I think he'd probably be able to get more done quickly using C# in unity vs unrealscript. Should be pretty easy to pickup for him with a programming background.
Stretch yourself. Pick something you don't know how to code and figure it out. If you just do your classwork you're not going to advance as quickly as you'd like, especially if you find it boring.
Oh yeah, textures were just me quickly running my normals through NDo2. Lighting is temporary too. :) I'm still being blown away by the Crydev engine, I'm loving it so far...
The funniest part is that a ton of artists are beginning to become aware that their work is also on FunnyJunk. Their claims being bollocks does nullify their legal actions, though. A judge will throw this out quickly and laugh in the face of the FunnyJunk owner.
Blocked out the beast and quickly tried some clothing ideas for the girl. The mount in the sketch above is a bit more hostile but I think I'm going for a more playful direction. Dog / tame wolf type.