Hi,
I’m trying to model this Heron. I have a couple of questions about getting the other plumage on it’s head to model. I was thinking maybe using a rip tool to add another one but I don’t know how or if that’s the right approach. I don’t really know how to extrude in the middle of a form. Also, I used half of a UV sphere to make the eyes but that doesn’t seem to be going to well either. I can see in the back of the eyes. I was trying to save on vertices, but looks like I’ll need to use the whole sphere. This is my first modeling of a organic object. The chair I did came out very nice and I’m happy with it. I want to thank all those that came to the rescue 
I learned a lot on that one and want to get this right.
Thanks Jacki
Heron.blend (483 KB)
Hey Jacki, I had a look at your Heron and I think it’s a good start. I don’t think you have to worry too much about using a whole sphere for the eyes. I don’t think Blender worries about verts that are inside behind what it’s rendering. And there is an option to “skip inside” vertices, so you might be able to click that and save a little time if it does. But the other side of that sphere is not a lot of verts, and it would only have any effect either way if you’re running a very old machine.
I was confused about what you meant when you were talking about extruding “in the middle of a form.” If I understand you right, you can just click a face or line or vert and extrude it. Say you select a face, just hit “e” and if you want to extrude on the z axis, you’d hit e, z, or e, z, z if you want to extrude on local z.
I don’t know if any of that is helpful, so I’m sorry if I misunderstood what you were saying.
But this will look very nice when you’ve got it all done. Keep it up.
Are you planning to animate it with walking and the whole bit?
Hi Adam,
What I did was experiment with ripping and just making the object and shoving it in the bird. LOL. It’s actually the crest of the bird that has 3 feathers the top feather I ripped and extruded and the bottom feather I just added to the middle feather. Found that’s a lot easier, but it may not the be the “right” way. So I make some chest feathers and duplicated them and added those to the birds chest. It’s good to know that Blender doesn’t recognize those inside.
I’ll post it, hang on.
Heron.blend (537 KB)
See what you think.
Thanks,
Jacki