mail them copies from kinkos and include some cookies. Also, if your mom is hot, include some racy photos of her!! or, just do the online portfolio thing.
To add the list of all these great tips: Experiment with some of max's other tools: including the move and relax brush for local tweaks, it's got strength and falloff settings too. And if you happen to have UnwrapPro, you can define density via vertex colors or soft selection. AFAIK the plugin won't let you lock border…