I have been "playing around" with Apophysis for a few years now. I started with an older version of the program - can't remember which one. I found Apohysis 7x and never used the older version again. I had lots of fun doing several tutorials that I found on deviantart.com and made some cool stuff with tweaking the tutorials. However, I haven't touched the program in quite a while but the other day someone I know mentioned fractals and it got me started again. I was looking for new tutorials on deviantart when I happened upon someone's artwork that was simply incredible. It was
http://tahyon.deviantart.com/art/Mayan-Pendant-revised-342817629 from Tahyon. I saw that he used Mandelbulb 3D so I did some searching and found this site. I downloaded the program but it is going to take me some time to figure it all out. I do know where the tutorials are on this site and plan on going through them slowly as I learn to make some beautiful 3D fractals.