What I spend my time doing
This is called UV mapping. It's a way to take still shots of a 3D object and stitch them together into a 2D, or flat, surface that you can then paint on. It's the grunt work of 3D art but it's necessary and it's very useful to be good at it.
What you're looking at is a screenshot of my computer screen. I imported this model after sculpting on it in ZBrush. The left window is the main work space - the right window is the UV Texture Editor window. I move around the model in the left window and select faces (like facets, small polygonal areas created by intersecting lines) on one axis or another (X,Y, or Z) and then take a snapshot of it. The flat shape created by the snapshot appears in the right window. I move it off the workspace and continue taking snapshot.
Once I have every available face grouped and translated into a 2D representation I can sew the pieces together. I had not done any sewing before I took this screenshot, so what you're looking at is a collection of pieces. The picture might be too small, but at the top you may be able to make out the pieces of my model's head. Her face is in the center, and her ears (not to scale) are on either side.
After I've sewn all the pieces together I moved and shrank them and put them in the top right hand box. Then they're ready to be exported and painted!
I love doing this.