Poly Modelling: From Start to the Finish Line

Writing from personal experience, the most difficult parts of Polygon modelling are the first and last 10% of the process. When a polygon shape is established and the task is add extra features and extrude extra shapes. But the Initial stage where the . Vice versa for the Final stage, where minute tweaks and details can make or break the scene.

Fig.1. Initial geometry created from extruded rectangle

Lets Take a simple Mask. It is face so conventional 3D modelling wisdom would tell us to start on a square, subdivide and start from there. But what about the back of the mesh? Its almost flat. Because of this, I began to edit with a rectangle, which I then stretched the width, narrowing at the bottom then extruded. Below is a Subsurface modifier apply to that basic mesh.

Fig.2. Further subvided mesh taking shape, and the Concept Art it was inspired by (African Arts Gallery, 2025)

But what about starting to building complex surface geometry? Lets take this Nose. 

First of all, vertical Edge Loop for the nose bridge. Then a horizontal Edge Loop for the nostrils.  

Extrude the Upside-Down T shape to resemble a 

Correcting the shape; rotate and translate and shape edges, not vertices to prevent incorrect geometry. Occasionally this will happen where a quad turns into a unoffical n-gon. This is more common with organic geometry.

Fig.3. in progress extruding geometry and creating edge loops to plan 

To mitigate this issue you can flatten the n-gon along its face normal to turn back to a quad. If necessary (for example, at the edge of a nostril where the angles are acute) change the geometry into triangles so that you can more finely control the vertices. See figure 5 below.

Fig.5. geometry edited using translation and rotation, resembling the reference face now

Now, sometimes the geometry already resembles the concept reference but it needs some finishing touches. See below, our Airship in the concept art is conveying a sadistic, looming presence over the ground below it. The face geometry is almost complete but it needs extra tweaking:

• The very low polygon count cant handle the level the level of complexity of the model
• There is a lack of emotion in the characters face. Needs more exaggerated face expressions.
• The initial shape of the mesh is a smooth subdivided cube, intended for face modelling. but our object is a zeppelin/airship.

Fig.6. On the left, the concept art for the project, right, the low polygon prototype

The first step was to enable subdivision surface modifier, and change the Edge Crease of all the vertex so it more closely follows the geometry. Furthermore, I translated and rotated the faces above the eye to create a ghastly, ominous look.

fig. 7. Editing the face geometry and adding edge creases

Afterwards I used the Blender Add-on Loop Tools (Blender Foundation, 2024) to calculate a circle from the mesh on the top and bottom of the mesh.

Fig. 8. Two pictures showing the process to use loop tools to create a circle at the top and bottom of the mesh.

Fig. 9. Clean-up of the circle vertices into quads

After apply methods and carefully editing the mesh, the face now resembles the silhouette of a war-time airship, with a more animated face that suits the abstract horror theme. All while the geometry is still clean and well made for 3D real-time engines.

Fig. 10. Finished geometry after making all the mentioned changes

References: 

African Arts Gallery, 2025. Gouro Mask (22423) - African Mask, tribal art, Primitive art Gouro. https://www.african-arts-gallery.com/african-art/African-mask/Guro-mask/22423

Blender Foundation, 2025. Loops Tools - Blender 4.1 Menu. https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/4.1//addons/mesh/looptools.html