Extrude - keep faces together - hollowing an object

I’m trying to follow this tutorial, but in blender (section: “Hollowing your model”):

Is blender able to extrude in this way? Because when I extrude “region” on an object, basically what happens is that the entire object is copied. Extruding “individual faces” however almost behaves the way I want it, but the new faces don’t remain connected to each other.

Any other ideas how you could make a complex mesh hollow?

After a brief look at your link, you may want to look at applying a solidify modifier in blender 2.5x or if you are using blender 2.49b, the ‘solidify selection’ script.

Wow, that was exactly what I was looking for. Thanks!