Help detailing a chess piece (bishop)

I don’t have a lot of knowledge on Blender yet and I’m trying to make a chess set, but I ran into a problem when making the bishop, the problem is that when I try to make the “cut” detail on the top of the piece, it becomes very ugly (and much worse using subsurf), is there any way to fix it? I tried creasing and it helped but the piece is still quite ugly

I’m attaching images of the piece before making the cut, after making the cut without subsurf, with subsurf (but no creasing) and with subsurf and creasing.
Thanks

Attachments





Check out Greybeard’s Bathtub and bishop video Tutorial:

http://www.ibiblio.org/bvidtute/

hi, first, how was the slot modelled, did you use booleans? booleans can cause topology that is undesirable for subsurfacing. really, the best way to do it would be by using the retopo tool, which allows you to use one mesh, as a form, like a shoe form, or a hat form, to build another mesh on top of. so, what you would do, is, seperate the top bit, and use that as the form. arond the area, where the slot is, you want to make sure there are neat rows of vertices, also known as edge loops, bordering the sharp edge on both sides. that way, it will not get all screwed up when you subsurface it. If this doesn’t make much sense, I can make you a quick illustration of what I mean. And don’t get discouraged with retopo, which takes a little practice and knowledge to get the hang of.
(edit) and be sure to watch greybeards video tutorial on making a bishop, which i just noticed, heheh.

Yes, I used boolean difference to make the top detail. And could you please make this illustration so I can understand better? I’ll definitely watch the video as soon as possible.
Thanks a lot for the help!