Hello I am currently about to start a 3D animation portfolio, however I am not nearly as good at, or enjoy, 3D modelling and fear including my own 3D models in my portfolio could bring negative attention to the actual animations I am trying to advertise. So my question to you is, are there any popular free resources with good quality 3D models that I would be free to use in such a portfolio (royalty free type deal)? Or would I have to buy some models perhaps? Thanks again.

You might be able to find something on https://www.turbosquid.com/ but keep in mind they might not be 100% good for animations. You'll have to review the models topology to see but I've personally cleaned up many of those meshes for friends because either the counts were just way off (too high poly to animate), or the edge loops and the way the topology flows is just so bad you cannot animate it cleanly enough. 

There are lots of paid and free models on there and royalty free as well.

Thank you Rutin, that seems to be just what I was looking for. 

What software are you using?

Look for "free character rig for [insert software name here]". A character rig is the name you give to the model, skeleton, blendshapes and all rig controls (those floating objects you can grab to help manipulate the 3D puppet), combined as a single object.
It's the asset that is given to animators to work with.

- You can find student riggers that share their rigs for free (either publicly or upon request).
- Buying something will almost always give you a better product, it's usually made by a professional that wants some side income -- just make sure this is true obviously, anyone can put a price tag on anything and call it "professional".

You need to focus on searches for the software that you're using, because character rigs are advanced objects and are deeply connected to the features of that software. A Maya rig won't be ready to use in Blender, not without lots of porting work.

Edit: Some people like to call "rigs" just the model weighted to a skeleton. That is not a rig, that is a "skinned model".
A rig needs to have controls and mechanism logic (conditional features like IK <-> FK switches etc., controls that map XY location to blendshape strength etc.), something like this:

Thank you for the reply and information Kryzon. I am using Maya LT. 

This is an example of a commercial Maya rig: https://www.joshsobelrigs.com/rigs

You might want to send him an email asking if his rigs work on LT.
Good luck!