Problems with blender, hopefully easy to fix

Support Basics & Interface
1

So i recently began learning blender, and i am very eager to learn it, but several frustrating problems keep me from completing projects.

  1. I was watching a tutorial on how to model a human head, whenever i would hit tab to go to edit mode, my human head would be replaced by a cube.
  2. I seem to be having trouble with zooming in, and navigating. i will try to zoom in on my object, and it will only get so far and stop, it wont let me look around or anything all i can do is scroll out, i tried switching to ortho view, but that actually changed the appearance of my model, and made the camera do very strange things
    how can i fix these problems
2

it would be helpful to know your Blender version and your PC Operating System.

3

  1. That is happening with Multiresolution modfier if you do not Apply it. Be sure you have a copy of object on different layer before applying. No reverse operation.

  2. See camera clipping distances on Camera properties. Change of apperance is expected tho :). Look how default cube changes e.g.
    Selecting object and hitting dot on numpad helps sometimes to get closer. Try to apply scale, location, rotation - Ctrl-A.

Hope that solves some.

4

Blender 2.61
Windows Vista 32-bit

5

Your answer for number 2 was very helpful, but i am a little bit confused about what you mean for the first 1

6

Hmm… You did not mention which tutorial… So i assumed something, where sculpting is used… And that usually implies applying Multiresolution modifier to the initial mesh… nm, guess that wasn’t appropriate here.
‘My human head’ - then it’s what - background image?

7

in the regular subdivions modifier enable the vertex and or mesh options … :