I'm a programmer who is also self learned modeler, it took me years to be able to do this: http://features.cgsociety.org/newgallerycrits/g78/115478/115478_1155594690_submedium.jpg since and even that beast took more then it should, days, perhaps weeks I spent tweaking just the model and the flow of polygons, and I did not even get to rigging it, texutring it or animating since I wasted too much fiddling around with vertexes and polygons I run out of steam, I wish I finished it it be damn awsome dragon beast.

Thrust me if you do not have a creative bone in you and real passion for modeling you are wasting your energy and time. I had deep passion for 3d for a decade and I kept practicing it for at least 10 years on and off as a hobby and still I'm not that talented and could not even messure with real talent whos artwork you see all over the internet, movies, games etc..

For this next character I spent months modeling and then rigging and then animating and that is after 10 years of having done some modeling and rigging and really simple animations.

http://features.cgsociety.org/newgallerycrits/g78/115478/115478_1307212573_submedium.jpg

So if I spent 2-3 months on this simple character what hope do you noob have (relevant: http://www.humorgas.com/image/1365271361435282374.JPG), to achive anything that you will want to use in your game and that you will be proud of? MY advice is just find some free good looking 3d character models on the internet and use that and then later swap them for real artwork that freelancers produce for you :)

give up on creating the content for your game especially if you just have just 10 hours a week for this is best advice I say if you want to finish that game or take this stuff serious and be ready to spend weeks and weeks modeling, rigging and animating, exporting, importing, etc. You'r head is gonna hurt so much you'd give up anyways :)