Druid Wild Shape - How to?

[noseman]

I would like to start by saying I really appreciate all the hard work that you guys at Wolflair do to help your customers. I'm an avid fan of both the M&M and d20 products for Herolab. Now to my question:

I'm going to be playing a DnD v3.5 Druid for the first time in a few weeks, and was wondering how to create a wild shaped form of my character?

I have the animal companion part down, but there does not appear to be a specific spot to create a wild shaped form from the Druid base class. I tried to add the animal separately as an NPC, but ran into a wall when I tried to add "monster" levels (not class levels) to the animal to match my level (6th level), while the base animal only had 3 HD (leopard). The software doesn't allow (as far as I can tell) leveling up unless it is a class/template level.

It may just be my understanding of the wild shape ability, and if that's the case, please let me know as well. I was under the impression that I retain my mental ability scores, HD and HPs, lose any gear as it melds with my form, while gaining special attacks and the physical ability scores of the new form.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Mark