There are many places online for both free and pay for content. Most of these sites require you to register and be logged in to access the items. My best advice regarding registering and receiving newsletters and making purchases, etc., is to set up an email strictly for 3D stuff. You can use the account to sign up at these sites and receive any mailings that interest you. It's also great for when you wish to converse with other artists but are not comfortable using your personal email.
Another bit of advice, decide on the user name you want cause in many cases you will not be able to change it. It's best to have the same password for each place to have less confusion, in most cases you need a minimum of 8 characters, not many require a mix of letters and numbers, it's rare. Make a note on your computer with each place you are signed on at, with the url address to get to it, your email you used, the user name and the password. This way you won't have to worry about forgetting. Also might be a good idea to write it down somewhere in case your computer crashes or dies and you need a new one.
Always sign up for the newsletters as that is how you are most likely to know about any great sales and freebies that become available. Some freebies are time limited. There are also seasonal sales and freebies and you will want to know about them.
Paying for things has many options available these days. You will want to have a secure way of doing that. The three biggies are PayPal, Credit Card (including pay as you go cards) and Debit Credit Card. The Debit Credit Card you can get from most banks depending on where you live. In some cases you have no fees associated with them. You will have to check with your bank about any of this. In this case you can only spend money you have in your bank account, there is no credit with these like with regular Credit Cards. Pay as you go Credit Cards you can get from Cash Stores that do payday loans and those can cost you, though cheaper then an actual credit card. Again you can only spend what you put on the card. The fees will depend on where you get it and where you live. This also goes for regular Credit Cards. PayPal is hooked up through your bank account. You transfer money between the two (sometimes this can take a few days to a couple weeks unless you use the Credit or Debit Credit Cards). This also is dependent on how much you have in your bank account. You will want to be careful with spending as you can not ignore your every day life and responsibilities.
Please keep in mind that 3D can be addictive, and costly, if you are not careful. Use your best judgement in making purchases. Also, there is a world of free content out there that can quickly fill up your hard drive. Chances are you will not use all of it. Trying to decide what to download can be frustrating because you never know if you will need it. You are going to need storage devices. There are two ways of doing this. One way is an external hard drive, of which some come with pretty impressive amounts of space. Another, and my personal favorite, is DVD disks. Make sure which ever you use that you clearly label things to make it easier to find them. When you get the special freebies, the one's that are time limited or seasonal, you will want those and to save them to disk so you will always have them and don't have to worry about missing out once the time limit or season is over.
The posts below are a list of sites you can check out and register at and start downloading content.
