Blender is indeed powerful and free, but I really wouldn't recommend it to a beginner. Its interface and workflow is too clunky. Maya and 3DS Max suffer the same interface/workflow problems, Maya especially.
Eh...there's nothing really preventing a beginner from learning *any* of those, except perhaps license price. Blender was my first real 3D tool. The first week with it wasn't all that amazing, but the learning hump was quite easy to overcome and nowadays I don't really think the UI is all that weird at all.
Blender's documentation situation has also improved tremendously in the past year or two, and there's plenty of tutorials available for beginners.
There's others on this board who have the same experiences using Maya and Max.
So I wouldn't call them "clunky"; that has the wrong connotations. Like the tool is difficult to use even after you've become familiar with it. It's probably more accurate to say they have a high learning curve, one which can be ameliorated with the proper manuals.
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