Hello,

though a learner myself, I am sure that UV mapping is very important. Even if you don’t have to animate the model, you cannot carry simple things like sculpting and painting without proper UVing the model beforehand. I dont think there is any way around it.

Usually when you see people sculpt a character from a sphere etc, you’re seeing someone take a shortcut because they dont intend to use that geometry. It usually is a concept sculpt, or an intermediate step to get a rough form, that they will base their actual model’s geometry on.

UV’s are very important. A great model looks BETTER with textures

yeah you will need maya, softimage 3dsmax or blender etc to create a still life image. Mudbox isnt really an output tool in terms of rendering. It’s a sculpting program. You build your scenes in a 3d animation program, and use mudbox to detail models to be used in that 3d animation program.