I also use Blender 3d and the GIMP for my work but the thing to be aware of timmie124 is that although free, these are MAJOR applications and each is a rival for full featured professional applications.
This is significant because both applications have very robust but non-intuitive controls and menu systems and sometimes even naming systems in comparison to the commercial retail professional standards. If you really intend to get a handle on either or both application then you are going to have to haunt the help forums and work your way through tutorial after tutorial for them. This is what I have done and am continuing to do.
On the plus side, you can learn to be fairly proficient with the GIMP after about a month's study and Blender 3d after about two months. But by that I DO MEAN real study and work with them not just trying to teach yourself how to make them work.
Although I DO recommend the GIMP and Blender easier to learn alternatives [also free] are paint.net and Fragmotion. Of course since they are easier to learn this mean that they can't do as much.
That's what you are going to find with any of these free applications, the closer they come to rivaling the professional's tool sets the more steep the learning curve. There is a sticky or two at the top of the forum page that can give you a listing of both free and pay applications for use with 3d work.
Eternal student in search of knowledge. But will settle for the occasional epiphany.
