small update, some things look a little too shaded and extruded because they are floated (the big handle where it is attached to the cashbox and the lock where the key is sticked into)
cut a mouth in to the head using 3ds max? Well, extruding function of max is really great, so do it by selecting the faces and intruding or Shift+LMB+drag.
That clock is pretty easy. Just count the number of parts sticking out of the center (in this case 12) and then just make a cylinder with that many sides and extrude them all.
In Maya yes, but only 2012. It is extrude "thickness" parameter, if you don't delete history then you can always adjust it as its a node like Maxs stack.
why the extra loop around the top, it shouldnt need it to catch the normals perfectly, get rid of that and use the polys to extrude a couple of the boxy details or make it openable
This might help. I started off with a box, illustrated by the selected faces, then I extruded outwards and did a Select and Uniform scale on them to achieve a rounded shape.
funny Santa your construction shot looks interesting did you extrude it from a spline in front and side view somehow ? or is it just placeholder which program is it