Hey howard!
Sorry, but the tutorial will be up tomorrow...
about the squashed areas, have u tried the "relax" command in the UV editor, it works very nice!! Have tried to write the tut in a very easy way, but I guess I'll hear about it when u read it!!!
Keep up the good work!!
Cheers!
Beauty is worse than wine, it intoxicates both the holder and beholder - Immermann"