I was lucky enoguh to have some formal training for 3ds Max (with v3.1 about 7 years ago) but before that I had been completely self taught starting with POVRay in the early nineties, then progressing through bryce / truespace. The formal training really was a more how to do it in max then about the ideas behind it.

One of the really important things is to think aboput what you want to do,

Great character stem from good biology!
Great scenes stem from an understanding of light / nature / architecture
Great animation from an understanding of motion

None of us can be Pixar in a single person - studios have teams of specialists - the modellers, the riggers, the texture artists etc all we can do is attempt to make our own little piece of it. If your idea is to switch careers in the future to work in a studio then think about whether you should reflect a little bit of a pipeline in your show reel....

Above all whatever you do enjoy it!!!!

----------

Toolset: Blender, GIMP, Indigo Render, LuxRender, TopMod, Knotplot, Ivy Gen, Plant Studio.