Is there any good character rendering tutorials around?

ToughSquirrel

Hello, I am new to rendering. I heard that there is a method that you can follow in order to render your character nicely for display. All I know right now is to use mental ray render engine in Maya and using Diffuse , Specular and normal maps. Is there any step by step tutorials around the forum that i can follow to learn more about rendering?
Thank you!

Obscura

here you go