Create a Reference Image in maya

So first thing is first, you need to be in your new scene and you need to create a Polygonal Plane, you then need to rotate the plane (as shown below).

The next thing you need to do is open your Hypershader by going to Window>Rendering Editors>Hypershade

After opening the hypershader drag the Lambert material into your work space(Green Arrow), rename the material ReferenceImage or what ever suits your needs. After doing these steps goto Color under Common Material Attributes and click on the checker box(Blue Arrow).

After clicking the checker box you will get this pop up Create Render Node click on File.

After clicking File from the Create Render Node screen this screen comes up and to upload an Image click on the Folder next to Image Name.

After completing the steps above you have now given your Lambert Material your Reference Image, but now we need to give your Plane the material. So from here open your Hypershade again and you will see ReferenceImage or the name you chose to give the material (Black Arrow), from here middle mouse click and drag it onto the Plane from the Hypershade window (Green Arrow).

Press 6 on your keyboard to get the image to show up on the Plane, after doing this goto Freeze Transformations and click on the options box to the right, from here make sure that Translate, Rotate, and Scale are check marked and press apply. You will notice it resets all of your attributes to 0 except scale which will be 1

Now that you have your reference image on your plane and you have done the Freeze Transformation option we need to delete the History on our Plane, you can do this by going to Edit>Delete By Type>History.

Now it is time to make a Layer for your "Image Plane" to do this goto Display>UI Elements>Channnel Box/Layer Editor, this will turn your Atrribute Editor into a smaller menu as seen in the next photo.

Click on the new layers button (Black Arrow) and a new layer will be created directly under in the dialogue box, after creating the new layer goto the Options (Blue Arrow) and make sure Add New Objects to Current Layer is UNCHECKED, if it is not every object you make will be auto sent into the layer and you will not be able to work with it.

After you have the new layer and the Options set up select the Plane, after selecting the Plane right click on the Layer and click Add Seleced Object. You may also have noticed the three Boxes with a V in the first nothing in the second and a / in the third. The first box with the V in it will turn the object on or off so you can hide it easily while working on a model, the Second box has 2 options T - Transparent (has the outline of the Plane but you cant see the plane) and R which is the setting you want, this setting will make it so you CAN NOT select it again so there are no resize, move, or rotate mishaps while working on your model.

Congratulations you have just made a Reference Image, Good luck modeling and learning this technique.