First off, welcome to the Guild zipper&button! I have not used either of these programs myself so unfortunately can't offer you much advice here. I regardless of which of thes (if either) you decide to go with though, it is also a good idea to have a good program for painting and drawing. The two most popular used here are GIMP and Photoshop, and they are well supported in the tutorials section. GIMP is free so it wouldn't hurt to pick it up and play around with it. Anyway, I'll let others answer the questions regarding 3D software.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh