Fusion 360 Free version - work arounds

[Kitwn]

Having just invested in Vectric Vcarve Desktop but with no intention of laying out the vast sum required to buy Aspire I've been wondering what free 3D design software is capable of being used to create designs I can import into Vcarve for artistic sculpting instead of relying on other people's designs of pretty grape vines, dragons and cute dogs (there seems to be a lack of cute dogs, just lots of growly ones). This is not something I'll be wanting to do in the near future, there's enough to learn already, but I'd be interested in hearing more experienced people's views on which free or relatively cheap software is best suited for creating these kinds of arty objects rather than the more engineering type stuff. I'll need to start now, my artistic talents are not that great as it is and learning how to do 3D stuff on a computer as well as how to draw something worth cutting into a piece of decent timber will need some time.

Many years ago, when I was into making animated films, I looked briefly at the open source Blender software. It hasn't been mentioned in this thread but does anyone have experience with this particular package?

Kit

[Muzzer]

Solid Edge is free for eternity for non professional use, as in the licence has no expiry date. When I used it that wasn't the case, so I couldn't see any certainty that I'd be able to continue using it and accessing any work I did later on. It's proper, professional software, equivalent to Inventor, Solidworks, Onshape, Fusion etc. If you don't plan to do any CNC work, there's no reason not to get stuck in!

IIRC, you end up with a watermark on any 2D drawings you create (big deal!) and apparently you can't open files in a paid for version of SE but that's academic here.
https://www.plm.automation.siemens.c...ware/community