how is this for 3 weeks experience?
the snowman originally was a tutorial found here
http://biorust.com/tutorials/detail/81/us/
but after makiing it i edited it to see if i could do a good job.
critisize!
A couple things wrong with it.
- The lighting does not match the background image.
- The shadows are to dark. Make them lighter and softer.
The textures are kind of plain, but thats not such a big deal I don’t think.
Still, for 3 weeks thats very good. I couldn’t even do shadows for about twice that long 
3 weeks it’s a lot of time… your experience = 3/10
here is my work when I was 3 weeks experience
http://www.blender.pl/component/option,com_simpleboard/Itemid,/func,view/catid,17/id,3078/#3078
and
…now I have 1 year with blender 
heres a couple bigger pictures.
i dont know how to make the shadows softer or lighter 
Basically, - add a fill light, or global illumination/Ambient occlusion.
Less basically:
And seriously, buy (or borrow) that book.
you know, if you go up to the “file” menu, and hit “save image,” you don’t have to keep taking screenshots.
Just don’t forget the extension. You can control the format in the Scene options, on the right side.