I'm not a model maker but those of you that are may be interested in this free program from Wings 3D at http://www.wings3d.com/
Wings 3D is a subdivision modeler inspired by Nendo and Mirai from Izware.
It is possible to assign materials, vertex color, UV coordinates and textures, but there will be improvements in those features before Wings goes 1.0.
There is no support in Wings for doing animations.
Export Formats
* Nendo (NDO)
* 3D Studio (3DS)
* Wavefront (OBJ)
* VRML (WRL)
* Renderware (RWX)
* FBX (on Windows and Mac OS X)
* Yafray
* Toxic
* Povray
Import Formats
* Nendo (NDO)
* 3D Studio (3DS)
* Wavefront (OBJ)
* FBX (on Windows and Mac OS X)
* Adobe Illustrator 8 (AI)