TheBest3D.com likes and recommends:

AC3D

more: cool tools

AC3D is a powerful and rather intuitive 3D modeler by Inivis. It is also very affordably priced and supports numerous 3D formats for export and import, including some formats used in games or by other tools for game dev. It might just be a good tool for your 3D modeling needs. Check it out.

to probe further:

One thing we like is the ability to send the current 3D view to the clipboard, to send it indirectly straight into Project Dogwaffle. Here's an example:

< click the image to enlarge

We drew a polygonal shape of the number '3', then used beveling two times, and applied 'holes'. The clean 3D display in the lower right was then sent directly to the Clipboard from the option in the Edit menu.

Thereafter we switched to the already running Project Dogwaffle session, using Alt-Tab, and sent the Clipboard into the image buffer from the Buffer>Clipboard menu. We then added a few effects to generate this image:

Project Dogwaffle offers alpha glow, alpha emboss, paper texture through brush and many other special fx.