[Stiglr]

One caveat: my tutorials have NOTHING whatsoever to do with animation. AC3D doesn't support any kind of animation, although there is a plug in that helps in creating animations for X-Plane, a flight simulator.

You can get really deep into animation in Blender, which is a free modeling software. However, it is a LOT harder to learn than AC3D. For this reason I prefer to do my object creations in AC3D, even though I know Blender is more than capable of doing the job.

Also, if you have a 4-month deadline, that might be very aggressive for taking on learning 3D modeling from the start and ending up with any complex object like an aircraft or a hangar or animated workers. That's quite a bit of acquired skill to be able to do that.