time to lern blender? Ofc, blender is a must :-D joke ;-)
But humans are VERY hard (imho) to model, animate, ...
But I love the people from 3dfoin and their models, so I suggest their models, maybe they fit your agenda?
3dfoinGood price and looks nice.
If you want to model such a challenge, how about some "step-by-step"-tutorials like this one?
Character Modeling in Blender cgtuts or blender cookie are great for learning and improve blender-skills :-D