On Monday 12 October 2009
in the past few days I have created my toaster and my magnifying glass, allonh with my first concept picture of an idea of what I am thinking to do for my final portait 
This I found easier to create, after creating my toaster, when creating this, maya did the classic thing of crashing at the vert end, inwich led me to, go back to its last save, but this led be back before i put the textures on, this tought me to save regually.
this is, the toaster, through creating this first, I'm finding the maya program much easier to work with and allot of areas now are becoming automatic, although i have still allot to learn.
There are a few problems here. Firstly, the magnifying glass model has not been 'smoothed'. Also its scale is a little off (Large head / small handle). Secondly, the toaster light position too close making the image dark.
I realise this is the first time you were using Maya but attention to detail is always a priority. So when making a model (Maya or otherwise) keep one eye on proportion.