Inverted Normals and/or Non-Manifolds Trouble

Something tells me this has been said a lot in the past, but... I'm new to most all of this, so please bear with me and my inexperience.

I've been working in ZBrush, exporting the result as a wavefront OBJ, and then converting that via Accutrans3D. This model that I'm currently trying to fix up for upload passed the Water Tight test on Accutrans, but it also made a note that some edges were shared between three or more polygons.

I did a whole lot of searching around, and tried opening the OBJ with Blender to find and fix the non-manifold areas. After a quite a bit of work, I noticed that, basically, one part of the model just wasn't working. So, I went into ZBrush and redid that whole section, hopefully in a way that'll actually work.

And, well, it didn't. And now when I try to import the file to Blender, I can't get it to select anything on the object. Again, inexperienced, so I'm likely just not pushing the right button, but I want to check if there's something incredibly easy that I just missed out on.

For both models, everything "looks" okay in ZBrush (it doesn't look like any normals have been inverted, and trying to flip them just makes everything wrong), but I guess I'm not the person to ask. So, I'm attaching both of the models in obj format, zipped so that I'm not spamming messages to attach files. I'd really prefer suggestions to getting the first model "fixed," but if part 2 is any easier to work with, well, sometimes you can't beat convenience.

I still have everything saved in ZBrush if something needs to be reworked at an earlier stage.

Thanks to anyone that takes a look.

oracle of wuffin,

I think this is printable. Its a Meshlab stl compressed.
Greetings AO

Wow, thanks! Looks like it's uploaded fine. I'll be playing with the scale a bit, though.

Would you happen to have some time to explain what you did? You know the saying, "give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day, set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life"? I'm interested in learning.

Hi oracle,
If you teach me how to model a model in Zbrush like you did in a few lines. I can teach you also how to fix the files.
Its easy if you know where to go. I don't mind to help you anytime if you have a problem. Put it on the messageboard and somebody will help you too. Help others and they'll help you.

I'm happy that it worked out. I also have myself problem in scaling to the right size. Check that really good before you order.

Greetings AO.

Well, I'm doing a lot of modelling for a class for a professor that's a bit out of the loop, so I actually have a bunch of step-by-step pictures on how that model was actually made. If you wait a few days, I'll just write something up to make the process a bit more understandable.

Well, sorry for the wait. Lots of people say I talk too much and I'm the quietest person they know, so I hopefully gave you your money's worth.

Here's the write-up, but I suggest making some popcorn and getting something nice to drink before you start.