Hi Duke, those look like they're probably a pretty challenging type of shape to start with, because they've got a bunch of details and lumpy things that are all running right through each other.
The more kinds of pieces that you have all sort of melting together, then the better it tends to be to use a subd toolset for that particular model.
The more distinct kind of shapes you have, especially ones where there is a strong element of a 2D profile that drives the shape, then those are the kinds of things that you would want to do with NURBS.
The designs you have there are not quite a slam dunk on either one of those sides or the other, but they seem to me to be quite a bit more on the melty side, I would probably figure doing those in Subd instead.
For doing something like that in NURBs, one of the big recommendations that I can give to you is that you don't try to build things directly to the final shape all at first. You generally try to build things as larger pieces that kind of punch through each other, and then boolean them together to produce the final edges.
So for instance with the tubular things there, try to imagine those as each an independent full "tube" on its own and focus on modeling that, that then later on get booleaned.
That kind of "build bigger and trim back" thinking process tends to be a rather difficult change for many people who are used to poly modeling since you don't do that with poly modeling.
Anyway, for those particular ones I think you're better of with polys. I can attempt to give you some tips on how to make progress if you really want to tackle it though.
- Michael
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