Tons upon tons. Paid resources like digital tutors and 3dtotal is good, youtube, tons of tutorials, from basics to ones that will guide you through a project, google everything you don't know about and a video will almost always pop up or a thread to forums such as these, the polycount wiki is a invaluable resource as…
If you go for free since you say it's gifted I would go and get some traditional art classes out of the way, take up a major you like and work on your art too. I would check out the second sticky thread in the General Discussion to get others insights on game colleges (I personally didn't go to one). Go to school until you…