Thanks for the welcome and advice all! I started last night installing SH3 Commander and JSGME. Then after spending a few hours reading up on the different mods I settled on LSH3, which may or may not have been a mistake. I've never seen such a complicated install guide, which also may explain why for the life of me I haven't got it to work yet!
But going to tinker with it a bit today. I have everything in the right place, or so I think, but its not showing when I load up the game. I will keep ya all informed!