Here's a tip...

Get a small stand-alone app called UVMapper. I'm not sure where you can get it, but I'm sure you can do a search for it. If you have 3DS Max, you can export your model to a Wavefront OBJ, load it into UVMapper, then export the UV bitmap. You can use any paint program to draw/paste in the images you want on the UV bitmap. Then just open 3DS Max and reload the 3DS model and use the bitmap as a texture.

I use to do this way back when I didn't know how to make textures. Alternatively, in 3DS Max (all versions) you can convert any model to an editable mesh and select individual polygons and colour them seperately, adding bump maps, transparency, etc.