Does anyone know anywhere where I can get a fully skeletal animated character in milkshape ms3d format ? I've only ever seen strange looking monsters. It's like looking for gold dust. cheers

I've used Milkshape a lot for HL modding, and I know there's a HL .mdl decompiler built in. You can decompile some HL models if you're looking for references. Note that every animation is a seperate .smd file, and there can be various .smd's for the mesh itself (since HL models use a bodygroup system which allows swapping of bodyparts). These .smd files can be imported into Milkshape. Be sure to import both a mesh and an animation .smd for a good result.
Otherwise, try looking around the Milkshape forums, perhaps you can find a few examples over there.