Selecting surfaces

[Stiglr]

I am having fits in texturing.

Here's the problem: I have an object that I want to texture the top and bottom sides of, with two different textures.

If I begin in top view and select all the surface polys from the top of the object, the selection "soaks through" and grabs bottom vertices as well. So, when I place the texture, the top looks just dandy: the bottom however, doesn't.

I've tried selecting surface polys in the 3D view, where I can get at them from different angles. But still, I get this soak through selecting: select one poly from below, and some of the polys on top will be selected...if I change my viewpoint and de-select the top polys, guess what: the corresponding poly on the bottom will deselect, too.

Any strategies for dealing with this? This also happens on, for example, the right side of a airplane fuselage, if the side view looks at the left side: you can easily texture the left side from the Side, but the right side takes the texture too. Of course, I've got another area of the texture for that.