Wings. It echoes many of the basic functions and some of the layout of the big boys, but it is free. And unlike some free modellers, exists on three major platforms (Win, OS-X, linux). One advantage to getting into a commercial ap is that there will be tutorials on the disk and in the manual. Cinema4D comes to mind here; excellent walk-through tutorial set on the CD. Otherwise, my suggestion would be to bypass the web-based tutes for now, as excellent as many of them are, and get a couple books on basic 3D (or get into a class). I rather enjoyed Craig Lyn's "Mac 3d Handbook" when I was branching out of Bryce -- it is a good overview of 3D but rather thin on modelling techniques. Anyhow, check your local book barn and see what you can find.