Quick Outline for custom players

Hey can someone just give me a quick out line of how to make custom players.... I wanna put me and a few friends in the game.... with our real faces and pics included.... I see many posts about putting custom players into .viv's and stuff but HOW do I start from scratch and make my own people and what software is essential for doing this??? don't have to go into detail just ... like for example " picture importing >>> picimport2003" something like that .... thanks