Gaia Clary makes sculpty and mesh tutorials. I’ve linked to several in previous articles. I think they are very well explained tutorials. Gaia has a revised tutorial out about mesh. Revised may be unfair, but I’ve seen an earlier version so… but you may find this a Finished Version of the tutorial. This is a very complete first walk through about SL Mesh. It is not about how to use Blender or 3DS.
The tutorial is made for those frailer with making sculpties in Blender, 3DS, or Maya. It is not a noob’s tutorial. I think it is worth a read by newbies. It covers all the things one is going to need to be able to do with their modeling program. It is somewhat a list of things to learn. Plus it is a good foundation for terms used with SL.
Check it out: The Kettle Quest