I'd like to be able to create a few custom loading screens featuring Colette Marence and the other Winterhold Mages, but it seems I have to load them in as a solid, custom model. Is there any way to do this as someone with no modeling experience?

I'm afraid not, afaik you'd have to import the static body into something like Blender, pose it, and then add everything else, like eyes, armor, hair etc (armor and hair having to be imported as statics and posed as well).

At least I think so, that's what I remember reading a while ago in this place, someone might have found a better solution.

I'm guessing this would be really and unreasonably difficult for someone who stares at nifskope and goes "WHAT." Is that correct?

Yes.
I'm moving from the stage where I look at NifSkope and say "Okay" to the stage where I look at blender and go "WHAT?".
It took me a while to make it to this stage.

However, Blender Noob to Pro is extremely helpful.

Yep, but it's gonna take a while before Astral's gonna be able to make anything efficiently, let alone morphing a human body.

I'm picking at Blender for a while now, I only dared to make the most basic stuff, am not even thinking about making anything organic any time soon. Then again I didn't follow any tutorials or anything, I just had one friend showing me various interface via skype, so you'd definitely learn a lot more than I did if you bookmark mentioned Noob to Pro and poak around the program for an hour or two every day (I should probably do it too). But basically, yeah, if you're looking at Nifscope and you're like "WHAT?!" Blender is not a program you'll learn how to use simply by trying random things on your own.

Alright, I'll pray I can get someone else to help me with this then; I don't have any long-term goals in mind where I really feel the need to learn how to model and I just bludgeoned my way through learning how to scritp spells in a month as it is.