Anypony use Blender and/or Maya?

[Nightfall Veilwing 1,124]

I'm working on an MLP/Yu-Gi-Oh! fan series, and I was wanting to have the environment be done in 3D, but IDK if I should use Blender or Maya for it.

The 3D stuff wasn't gonna be anything complex, mind ya.

So, can any of you give me any pointers?

[Justin_Case001 4,855]

Isn't Maya a pay-for software?  I'd recommend Blender.  I use Blender a ton.  It gets my vote for most well-developed piece of software ever made.

Anyway, if you're thinking of getting into 3D modeling, there's a lot of considerations.  I mean, you can certainly just download it, jump in, and play around, but if you're serious about it, I'd recommend doing some proper learning first so you have a foundation.  There are many books available on Blender.  I'd recommend getting one and reading it cover to cover.  Obviously, there's all the information you could ever want online, but when starting a project and a skill like this, I think it really pays to do your initial studying with a proper source, a guide that's been professionally crafted to take complete beginners to a level of reasonable proficiency, rather than bouncing around between youtube videos where you're going to get inundated and overwhelmed too quickly.  I started with Learning Blender by Oliver Villar.  I felt like it did an excellent job of giving me a solid foundation.  I started from having never touched a 3D modeler before in my life to making Mare of Steel in a few months.  (That would be the Rainbow Dash models on the banner of my profile page.)

Anyone wanting to take their Blendering skills further cannot do better than Andrew Price's youtube tutorials from Blender Guru.

If you're unsure of how/if you want to proceed, just go on youtube and search for "intro to Blender" or something like that, watch a video or two that looks good, and if you feel encouraged and inspired, I'd recommend proceeding with the book option, or if the videos make you think, "holy sh*t, this is crazy, f*ck this," well, that's okay too.  Just start watching some stuff and see if you think it's for you.