The modeling method is quite different in each of the programs you made, though pretty much every other program is similar to one or the other. Get the trial versions of MAX and LightWave first to see which one's more to your taste- there's a good number of people that can understand one just fine but find the other's interface incomprehensible (LightWave's Greek to me, for example. I more or less figured out the rendering prog, but I couldn't get the modeler to do much of anything. And there are just as many peopel who have the same issue with MAX). As far as LightWave goes, I can't help you, but get LightWave Applied- it and a few other books are quite good on the topic.