if you're doing stuff related to art (that 16hrs to render your art project), then i'd suggest at least a high-end dual core (quad core is always better), 4GB DDR3 RAM, and a good graphics card (if you're not into gaming much, then the ATI Radeon series may better than NVIDIA GeForce since it uses DDR5 VRAM opposed to NVIDIA's DDR3).
Problem is he will have to get a high end MoBo to support the DDR5.