Hi there, and welcome.
What I would do is have a look in the help files for maya (press F1) theres lots of tutorials in there to get you going.
Also check out the free cartoon dog/human on here, it might be also worht noting depending on the version of maya you are using that the menus have changed a little, if some tutorials that you get are for an older version (pre version 8) and your using version 8 and above then you are probably best of searching the help files to find where the tool is that you need (if its not in the place that the tutorials says it should be!) It will be faster than posting a message and the files will tell you what the tools actually do giving you extra info for free!
Hope to see some WIPs soon
Cheers
Steve
"No pressure, no diamonds" Thomas Carlyle