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Blender is not a good program to start with...
Blender is fine if you have an uncanny knack for thousands of buttons, and can get around its more idiotic quirks, like setting your monitor to thousands of colors before starting it in OS X.
...who the hell has an "uncanny knack" for thousands of buttons? The fact that such a knack would be uncanny says a lot about the number of people with it, considering that uncanny, by definition, is something uncommon.
Erm, people who use Blender have an uncanny knack for thousands of buttons.
Zing.
Blender roxors! I've used Infini-D and Bryce to do pretty much everything ever since I started working in 3D - I just haven't had time to learn anything else. But I recently hit a brick wall in my development curve and decide it was time to get skillz - couldn't afford any of the standard efforts, Lightwave, Maya, 3SM... So I thought, hey, what's this free one all about.
The buttons are a little overwhelming initially, but if you learn to ignore the ones you don't use, it's actually remarkably easy to get to grips with. I'd recommend it to anyone on a low/no budget.