I don’t know the best way to model this because everything I model until now was basically put details above basic shape. But its different, the details are in the shape and it have some indentation…
Okey, I think the best way would be model the basic shape, and use booleans to insert this details so I could change later if my client ask. But booleans sucks…
So I could model a basic shape and use a knife to add this indentation details, but loopcuts will not work anymore, and its bad because I can’t control the subsurf.
Now I’m trying to extrude piece for piece. see.
But when I get at the end, its become weird, because I got so much vertices in the same place, I can’t show that because I deleted the final shape. Somebody could help me on this?
The guy that model that did it very quickly and he used 3dmax, this program is better for this?
Another question is about transforming orientation, I can’t get it working in the right way, no matter what kind a choose (global, local, normal, gimbal…) see:
If I use grab with transforming orientation to do that, at the end, I will get a shape very twisted.
I’m using vertex slide to do that but its slow moving each vertex per time.
Thanks, and sorry my bad english.
Hmm it’s harder than I thought But I think you should get the overall shape first, without adding too many polygons. Try also to keep it in quads, because then you get good and expected results from subdivisions. I modeled first the rough shape and then I added 6 loop cuts vertically and 6 loopcuts horizontaly in the upper part. After that you just select the resulting shape and extrude it inwards. Then you just adjust creasing to get shaper edges where you want. See the attached blend - this can give you more insight into it. http://www.pasteall.org/blend/17559
But I could imagine this shape could be made with curves…
Yeah I saw your example, I don’t like to left the corner 90 degrees to get rounded with subsurf, because it needs a high subsurf value to be fine.
I like to round the corners as I modeling the object so I got the exact shape and I can use a low subsurf value. And modeling the rounded corner adds a lot of loopcuts, so it turn difficult to draw like you did.
Also I don’t like to use crease, because you don’t get the desirable results in the corners most of times. I mean some rounded shapes is impossible to do with crease, and if you don’t made a good topology, using quads, etc…it will be harder to get the desirable shape in the end.
Curves seem interesting, I will learn more about curves and try it.
Thanks a lot.
Yes, thats is great because you can use a lower subsurf value.
But your model is wrong, you did the details with the same shape, only the size change, that is easy.
When you get more accurate with the original shape you get troubles in the end. Thats why I’m asking.
I think like cdog said, curves I’ll be the best try, I never used curve before so I don’t know if is better or not.
Yeah, I tried with curves, but when I convert curves to mesh it create a ugly topology with a lot of triangles.
Many thanks for your file. I get your tips now I’m doing by myself. As you can see my problem was here:
But I think you should get the overall shape first, without adding too many polygons. Try also to keep it in quads, because then you get good and expected results from subdivisions. I modeled first the rough shape and then I added 6 loop cuts vertically and 6 loopcuts horizontaly in the upper part. After that you just select the resulting shape and extrude it inwards. Then you just adjust creasing to get shaper edges where you want. See the attached blend - this can give you more insight into it. 
