These days, what training guides (books, videos, PDFs) for general 3D modeling learning do you recommend to new people just starting out in this field/hobby now that school is on break and 3D programs will show up in some artists stockings?

Attached Link: Andrew Klein

http://www.guerrillacg.org/

I think this is perhaps one of the best ones for somebody new to the subject. The presentation videos have some very good visuals when it comes to explaining things. It may not have much in the way of tutorials on how to model or animate something, but it does inform very well as to why some things are done a certain way during those processes. Once you understand those things, other aspects of modeling and/or animating tend to make much more sense.

Any new ones Shawn?

For absolute beginners, there's also a good bunch of video tutorials on the homepage of Silo 3D editor, nevercenter.com, showing both box modeling and edge modeling workflows.