NURBs

how does one make a full charater out of nurbs? like appendages and stuff, since you have to keep the number of cvs the same, and your curves generally have to run parallel? or is it not possible?

Pretty hard to make a full character out of nurbs-even more in blender.
Basically, there is no easy way to localize detail with nurbs- so you either have to have a lot of unwanted detail in some areas, or use multiple surfaces. Blender doesn’t have trim, filet or lotsa loft tools, so its more manual modeling and deforming.

3DS MAX has a great methodolgy that falls between NURBS and polygonal modeling…surface tools (actually patches).