For me I always wanted to make movies... Do models, matte painting, pirotech stuff, muppeteer (Inspired from Star Wars)... sigh... Then when I was in like sixth grade I was playing X-Wing (yes the original... I'm that old ) And just sitting there staring at the artwork I was inspired to do games. Then I saw Jurrasic park, Abyss and pretty much every single movie already named plus many more that use it and was hooked back to wanting to do special effects and movies! Same dream, different tools! right M8s?!?! I pretty much started with 3D studio 2 (not max either)Most my originals were pretty sad but I made evey single ship I could from Star Wars and loved it! Moved around through a few different progs Raydream, Max 3 and 4, Animation Master... And here I am with Maya! The rest is history!

Here's a screenshot of the first x-wing I made in 6th grade!