Uv's you say? May the various gods of the cosmos be praised! I've tried to understand these things, but they seem forever beyond my grasp... -.-Originally posted by gubar
Go with photos to be as accurate as possible when you model.
There are loads of good tutorials online, the book "The game artists guide to maya" is good too as it covers modeling (with images), uv'ing (with supplied textures) and animating, using the trax editor and even some particles.
cheers,
gubar