Sooo, it's done! Tomorrow I'll try to prepare the uv layout, draw a logo and make some screenshots of course. Then the skin goes to the workshop. Thanks everyone for your attention as always, peace :)
The Koth Viaduct update immediately came to mind, very good video, to show just how much the layouts can change in the beginning. http://www.teamfortress.com/post.php?id=2754
they're both equally good doesnt matter which app you learn as the basics apply to both just different layout. Also yeah that is the correct joan of arc tutorial.
Been horsing about with the layout, so it's all a bit messy atm . This is the corner bit in working on tho... Thanks mkandersson & Barnstable for the positive comments, helps keep me chuggin' on!
Thanks a lot samcole, I'll look into seeing what I can do. But in these short minutes I've completely changed the layout to better suit what everyone has said.
Theres a few handy articles in the wiki i don't have time to find but this is the general Uv layout for sphere's usually used: http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/-5gUXxpj5rw/hqdefault.jpg
Aside from layout differences, FF8 and IE8 look identical to me (colour-wise). Opera11 appears to display the images slightly darker, but it's not a noticeable difference unless you're looking for it.
You can bake textures from a high poly model to a lower one pretty easily. http://www.creativebloq.com/quickly-transfer-textures-new-uv-layout-maya-7134086
*Update!* I blocked out the scene in Unreal 4 with the basic stuff. Now that I have the scale and layout, I'll drop it into Maya and work out the details. More to come!