Ok, its allways best to explore by your self but its a long way to go.

Personaly I began by clicking the buttons and see what it does...very primitive and slow but you get in depth of every segment so its easier to solve problems.
I always have a need to get know why something works that way, what's happening under the hood.

DVDs can explan some tools very fast but its on you to figure the rest and go more into the details.
You can see others approaches and styles and compare them to yours....ooo thats a lot easier way to do it but it wont let me get enough control, but render is a lot faster...

So I suggest buy books, DVDs, explore, develope but dont forget artistic side of CG!

By the way I just got ZBrush-->very easy and fast to learn.