ZBrush practice and progress. Is it a very difficult program?

As I mentioned in my Zbrush Interface post, I'm just getting started with the program. Nothing simple at all, as there are so many ways to achieve something, and so many tools that can help get the trick done that it's hard to get used to something, especially when you can't find the tools easily.

So, after technically 3 hours of messing around with just the interface, I managed to get something done! Now, don't get me wrong, this is a veeery simple model, that I bet experienced users can do in less than 10 minutes. The reason it took me so long was because I wanted to mess around with the tools and see what I could do with what. Not a simple journey, may I say.

This is a model that's far from perfect. If I were to 3D print it, it would be horrible haha. There are some mistakes that on first sight, might get easily lost, but upon closer inspection, you can notice each one of them. In the end, I'm not really disappointed in the outcome, even with all the mistakes. I still have a lot to learn, but these obstacles won't stop me, in fact, they'll help me. Have you ever encountered an obstacle like this? What would you do in that case?

Btw, for those of you who might not know what this is, here's a picture of the original.