Hi Turtles,
I spend nearly all of my spare time doing this - including any days I have off work & nights. I would absolutely love to spend most of my time doing this. My work is part time (sales in high end jewellery) and ranges from 2 days to 6 days a week depending on when I'm needed. So when my employed work is slow I work up to 16 hours a day on my own designs.
I use whatever tools I can a) get my hands on and b) figure out.
I love mixing 2 or 3 programs together and getting unusual results. I'm quite good at using Adobe Illustrator and several of my designs are created in illustrator and then extruded, morphed, modified in a 3D program.
I also obviously use various fractal generators (exact details of these I'm keeping secret 4 now), and mix them with other 3D programs.
An example of the way I mix things can be seen in designs I did for a comp showing hand drawings by me mixed with computer drawing & design
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e09aHigizlk
I'm also a qualified jeweller (not practicing currently), and did a degree in design here in Australia.
Basically design is my passion and my life and I'm super keen to be more than a sales assistant
Hope my extensive essay sheds light on your question.
Janelle