The 4 lasts pictures, that is the birds, the football players, the coconut animals, and the medieval themed, are pecfect examples of what you should avoid for studying.
They are all beautiful and certanly something desirable to own. The problem with those kind of sets is that it is confusing to difference one pice for another, and you don't want to be studying chess while no able to reconice the move of a bishop becouse it looks like a parrot in the midle of the jungle.
So for decoration or for a collection of sets they are perfect, but not that good for practical porpuses.
I recomend you to get a set whit easy to reconice pices (like the Stauton sets). Avoid the ones with sharp parts, like some queen crowns end in points or like some Knights have pointed hears (I think that is what they call vampires ?)
Basically know how much you can spend, then decide what material you want to use. I prefer wood over plastic, still I know there is nothing grown with plastic, I just like wood, the smell of it, the feel of it, it is just my personal preference.
Plastic is way more cheaper than wood And they can have really nice looking sets for way less money than the same looks in wood.
If you chose plastic don't care too much if the description says wheited or not, if the price difference is too big, What I do is get the no waithed one and fill it up with playdough, if want extra wheit just put some heavy thing inside with the playdough Like a couple of marbles. that is what the factory does. I learned this in my childhood chess club, yes we were that cheap, still was fun as a proyect and save some money.
What I did to pick my actual set for study was look a lot of websites and pictures, until I found a set I fell in love at the firts sigth. The Knight is beautyful, The mouth in the bishop is thin and elegant (there are some sets I hate just becouse the way the cut on the bishops hat)... Also my set have some unusual hadcrafted finished: the wood was burnt to get the dark color.
This is the link:
http://www.thechessstore.com/product/PSBB375DP/Parker-Staunton-Chess-Set-in-Rosewood-Boxwood-with-3-34-King.html
As the praice was over my buget I just get the set and a different cheaper board.
It seems like I really do want a big full size beautiful board, but problem is, I don't really have room for it in my room, where I spend most of my chess time. And if I was to place it in the living room, I am afraid I might not use it that much after all.
A less than elegant but practical solution is to buy a nice, full sized set of pieces and use them with a good wooden folding board. When you're done using it just push the pieces to one side and fold the other side over and it should store nicely on a shelf--if storage was a concern.
The footprint on those folding boards, such as HOS carries, isn't bad either.