Matt is right. But I keep my suggestion. And for a soft I sugest what I'm currently using: C4D as is easy to use as Rhino and as powerful as 3DSMAX and light as Blender, or Sketchup.
It took me about one month to start building nice things. And about 3 months to really improve my models.
If you're interest (or anyone for that matter) I can show you what I've been watching reading to improve my modeling/texturing/lightening skills. Actually modeling is not that hard, texturing/lightening are the real challenge for 3D.