Creating a monster in blender?

[Wapez]

Creating the mesh and animating it will take you double that given time (So 5 years). Modelling is basically making the mesh.

No.

Imagine it taking 5 years for every modeler to create their first monster. You wouldn't see a lot of monsters around in that case.

Practising and learning is what takes time. But it wouldn't take more than half a year to get reasonably good at it. After that you can spend a couple of weeks on doing it, and you'll have a decent monster.