How are you going to asdd your own skin tone to it mate?? in Maya itself? Ive never done it...I use PS its really not too hard. Just start off with the light colours and work into the dark.

Grab Kurts tut on the character design...you will find it quite interesting. Then just apply what you learn to your model, he has a really good texture tut in the Spitfire Tutorial as well. You can really apply what he teaches to just about any model really...its just placement and layers.

Keep it up!

cheers bullet