As a relative newbie myself (two years) I started with Photoshop Elements, which hasnt got so may whistles and bells and full photoshop, but is very user friendly (and cheap!) In fact I still havent upgraded cause it does most of what I need in 2D. I only originally was planning to do montage/clipart work, but soon realised 3D was the way to go for me. I quickly added Poser 5 to my toolbox, which is invaluable, and Bryce for landscapes. Id recommend the above as a starter kit, maybe pay the extra for Vue5 if you can, but youll probably find poser will do most to start with. I still dont feel the need to upgrade to anything as expensive as Maya, free download programs like Anima8tor and UV maper can do most of the extra tweaks and simple models you might want to start with. Better to start with less software so you can explore it and build up from there than blow a fortune and find you work better with something else. Many of the programs have free trial downloads you can download to try before you buy, and Id really recommend that! Nothing worse than spending money on something you cant work with. Mostly it takes time to play with all this software, and to make some mistakes, the software will do a lot, but its no substitute for time learning however much or little you spend on software.