I thought I'd post this since it's very cool..
Again on Character rigging in Maya.. There's a detailed 54 page PDF file on rigging a character in Maya here.. Check it out anyway even if you don't have Maya.. http://www.subvoicestudios.com/tutorials.htm
Heres a character modeling tutorial you might be interested in. Its for max and is very good if your just starting out.
http://www.geocities.com/doord/Tut_1.htm