There are a coupleways to do it.. I'm a noob too.. so I will just do my best to help you until someone else can help you more..

One way to do it is to make different layers in the layer editor and then make the other stuff references or templates..

Another way to do it is to go up on the top.. there are some buttons that allow ou to mask certain objects.. like vertices or whatnot. So maybe look for "mask" in the index of the help guide in Maya.


Wish I could help more.. but maybe that will help you enough until someone helps more.