I was just going thug the first video of a topology series on CGCooie by jonathan Williamson.
In the intro that was a recording on a talk he gave at the 2010 Blender Conference he said modelling an ear is a good way to get better at topology. Although I have been using Blender since of about 10 year i have yet to master topology in my mind. Looking at object you get a sense of the structure of an object but organic modelling has never come together for me.
I told his advise of modelling an ear. It was going well, I was trying to think in terms of edge flow. Checking the flow using the loop cut tool. But now it just looks messy, the bare parts are there but thats all. I was wondering if someone could give some advice on how I could go about cleaning this model up and where I may have gone wrong. I know there is not right or wrong way but I am hoping that if I keep doing exercises, things will get better.
It looks pretty good for the most part. where the edge loops are a bit tight as they go toward the outside of the ear you can manually slide them away from each other a bit, so that they are more even as they reach the outer edge. I refer to the part on the mid-lower right. Overall it’s looking pretty good though.
I agree with Modron. That’s not bad at all.
It might be easier to have just a bit less geometry and work in all 3 dimensions from early on, after the base is there. Easier to comprehend the shape.
Red area is where you want the least amount of vertices as possible. Makes it easier to connect to the head.
Green area adds topology to get the shape but don’t disturb the surrounding edges. Top one is an inset and bottom one is a edge loop reduction to get that crease.
Edit: now that I looked at my drawing the second time, the bottom part of the ear could be cleaner. I drew it quite hastily, but you get the the point.
