Thanks a bunch guys! 
The exam went well, I think. So now it's summer vacation and maya for the next 10 weeks or so. 
Rubberkidney:
1. the smoothed model...are you using subD's? or just smoothed polys...
Not using subD. It's just a poly mesh with 2 subdivison levels mesh smooth applied.
2. Are you starting with a box, and then refining it down? or are you starting with something else?
Depends a bit on what I'm doing. For connected mirrored geometry I've found it nice to start with an outline of the mesh in the sideview using the create polygon tool. Then using the split polygon tool just add some major geometry lines going across that outline, and extruding them out. (see picture)
But for the e.g. the hand i started with a cube with 3x4x1 divisons and modelled from there.
Stefan Doverud
<a href="https://www.doverud.com/">www.doverud.com</a>