Hi, as tools you should try blender it's a great software and its free!!!! you have there all you need for creating 3d art.
for training you should take a look at cgcookie.com, it has tons of courses and tutorials for blender.
Also you can try with digital tutors have a few but there are well done and super easy to follow, and once you learned the modeling techniques it´s super easy to switch from one software to another.