Thanks

rusteberg: the sculpting is done in Zbrush, as is most of the texture painting (some was done in Photoshop Extended, in 3D mode), the rough paint on the Penguin is ArtRage oils converted to a bump map. Modo was used for modelling and initial texturing and lighting - the sculpting could have been done in Modo, but Zbrush is better at this job. The final lighting and textures were fine-tuned in Maxwell Studio, but most of the groundwork was done in Modo first, because the Modo preview is much faster than FIRE.
My experience of Modo is pretty much the opposite of yours! I really like it for modelling and rendering, less so for painting and sculpting. It's OK for painting and sculpting, certainly usable, but I prefer Zbrush for both of those tasks. Polygon modelling in Modo is amongst the best there is, and I love it for texturing and lighting because of the insanely fast real-time preview. I know some people don't get on with the Shader Tree but I find it OK.
For many renders Modo works just fine, I use Maxwell when I need a little more quality, or in this case because the sunlight system is a lot better.