I would suggest Blender, just crack down and watch some tutorials. Once you learn it, it becomes easier. I used to use C4D, then Maya, then 3DS , and I like Blender the most.
You have open source software (addons?) like MakeHuman, and MakeWalk (same people as MakeHuman). MakeHuman is a nice and easy way to make human characters. and MakeWalk allows you to import MoCap files for animation, which makes animation even easier.
TL;DR:
Stick with Blender, has a lot of cool open/free software and addons. Plus a lot more website that give out free assets to Blender users. Plus is as powerful, if not more, than 3DS /Maya plus…it’s FREE best thing about it.