you know that, your going about this all wrong. for a beginner anyways..
while the general technique of what your doing is *about* right, the way your doing it is quite silly.
you can't really just jump into your first character without a *plan*, this is probably the biggest rookie mistake *ever*. Getting help from Brent, while he is a competant modeller he isn't much of a tutor (no offense); especially given he uses Lightwave. Psionic would also be very little good to you as a 3DStudioMax user, given he uses Cinema4D.
You'd actually be wanting help from either myself, or Froggermon.
What you need to do, is first get used to the modelling interface and work from a base design. Usually you'd have a concept artist knock up what you need, as you are that guy... this means you'll need to whip up a
turn-around. This is a drawing of the model you wish to create from atleast the Front -> Side views.
Seeing as you probably don't have any dissernable sketching talent; I've gone and found an example one on the net. Something you can use for learning with.
This is a Dino Soldier concept from Turok Evolution, he would probably make a good addition as the leader of some non-human race in your RPG if you choose to use him.
I chose this because while he looks difficult the layout, actually makes him very easy. More-over he has a cape, which add a dimension for use later when animating or rigging physics.
Now the task with the image is quite simple. Using Microsoft Paint (as it's the easiest), try to box select around the front -> side -> back parts as best you can, then cut&paste them into new bitmaps.
Save each one with the name appropriot.
In order to export the arm & cape, what you do is make the selection slightly bigger than the image; then on the side / back bitmaps turn on transparency past them in and try to line them up with where they should be. Then turn off transparency, colour the rest white and export with an appropriot name.
Now in 3D Studio Max, what your going to do is to load all of these images... then create a cube. On the first one you'll select the *opposite* face to the one you want to use and map each of the Front -> Side -> Back images too it.
Resize it as needed (use the views to do this)... now move it so that it centres around the waiste rather than the feet.
The next task is to turn it inside out, i'll need to reinstall Max to find the exact control; but I believe you select the faces and in Geometry Edit, there is a 'Reverse' control.
Once that's done what you want to then do is to duplicate that cube (as a copy *NOT* instance) and on that one you then put the arms and cape. Make it slightly smaller than the first one, but only to prevent overlapping.
most people won't add layers, but once you've created these, you are going to want to learn layers. You'll need to create 2, so that you can hide / show these objects and turn off the world interaction. It can be done by making them freeze, but you don't have alot of control over frozen obejcts and I'd recommend that far more for when you need to edit individual objects.
Once you have your templates, the fun begins!
Start with a box and user the side view, extrude the box as needed to cover the *major* areas of the character.
Head > Shoulders > Waiste > Hips > Pelvis
Legs & Arms are always done seperate as they're a different style.
At this point your *only* doing the major details, so don't try to added hundreds of points.. it's just the basic shape your after.
Once that is done, use the Slice Plane and slice up the middle of the object. Then select and delete one side.. don't worry you'll add it back later but now you have the base for the model.
When I get back on later, what I'll do is add a few pictures in order to help explain what I've just gone over. In 3D Max *alot* of your modelling work done with box modelling, is done in the side view. Generally you only use the front view for shaping and Perspective for hard to reach selections or previewing.
