[Skanker]

dude, if you are a newbit to MAX, don't even bother TRYING right now. it's SUPER hard. I spent DAYS working on just a FACE. it STILL didn't come out very well.

HOWEVER: if you are extremely masochistic (one that likes to bring pain on themselves), and dont sleep---EVER... you can try building with patches. just pull and move around the vertices, and grow the edges and play with the lattices... AND THEN you have to add hair (which is REALLY REALLY hard without a plugin to do it for you)... it's really confusing, and frustrating.

I think that 3dcafe.com has a tutorial on creating human faces... you can use that as a basis to create the whole body.

Sorry if I discourage you. but I don't want you to be in over your head. only advanced modelers are able to create believeable human figures and maintain any kind of sanity. If you are a beginner, stick to inanimate and/or simpler objects for the time being. TRUST ME--you get better as you work with the basics.